“It is rarely played.  Its absolute simplicity of texture may lead performers to experiment with ornamentation, but I believe that it is an expression of Chopin’s new direction, in the difficult few years at the end of his life, towards a directness and purity of expression.  The Polonaise-Fantasy has somewhat the same mood, although it is much more elaborate.  The little nocturne is a tragic whisper.”

Chopin Biographer Arthur Hedley once wrote: “From the great Italian singers of the age [Chopin] learned the art of ’singing’ on the piano, and his nocturnes reveal the perfection of his cantabile style and delicate charm of ornamentation.”

Recent scholarship by some musicologists hear the song of a sorrowful Venetian gondolier (borrowed from Italian opera composer Giaocchino Rossini, whom Chopin greatly admired) in the undulating Nocturne in C minor, the 21st and final essay in the genre that Chopin perfected. It dates from 1847, just two years before Chopin’s death, but was not published until decades later.

• Listen to Nocturne in C Minor, KK 1233-5 by Fryderyk Chopin
  performed by Arthur Greene recorded live at the University of Michigan’s Britton Recital Hall
• Download sheetmusic for Nocturne in C Minor, KK 1233-5 by Fryderyk Chopin

According to the Cambridge Companion to Chopin, the composer hated the association:

“Chopin enjoyed elegant feminine company, but he had harsh views of the fawning of his ‘adoring women.’ He himself used the phrase ‘music for the ladies’, but unhappily he meant it disparagingly. Another association with the salon was the ’sentimental drawing room composer” – the ’superficial genius’ – and the appellation was encouraged by a self-imposed limitation of meidum, but the connotations of small forms, and by the description titles assigned to his music by publishers…”

One publisher in particular who drew Chopin’s ire was a London-based German entrepreneur named Christian Rudolph Wessel. As you can see by the cover page, above, (courtesy of the fantastic Chopin Early Editions site at the University of Chicago) the publisher issued Chopin’s marvelous Impromptu No. 2 in a series he called “Les Agrémans au Salon” — loosely translated as “Drawing-Room Trifles.” With “friends” like that….

Nowadays, Chopin’s Impromptus are a robust staple of the concert hall. Hear pianist Noel McRobbie perform Chopin’s Impromptu No. 2 in F-sharp Major, Op. 36, in a concert performance at the University of Michigan’s Britton Recital Hall.

Download the sheet music from the Piano Society web site.

• Listen to Impromptu No. 2, Op. 36 by Fryderyk Chopin
• Download sheetmusic for Impromptu No. 2, Op. 36 by Fryderyk Chopin

Chopin’s development of the Nocturne form really came into its own with the publication of his Three Nocturnes, Op. 15 in the early 1830’s. Today’s entry – The Nocturne in G minor, Op. 15, No. 3 – showcases Chopin’s incredible gift for opera-like melody at the beginning and end of the piece, contrasted by a fierce, fiery and virtuosic middle section.

Hear Chopin Project pianist Christina Thayer Fox perform Chopin’s utterly original Nocturne In G minor, Op. 15, No. 3.

Ferdinand Hiller, dedicatee of Chopin’s Op. 15 Nocturnes

Chopin dedicated the Op. 15 Nocturnes to his friend and mentor Ferdinand Hiller, a German composer, conductor, and pianist whose own music has been almost totally forgotten, but whose name lives on as the dedicatee both of these Chopin masterworks as well as Robert Schumann’s Piano Concerto.

Read the Wikipedia entry here.

Read the Chopinmusic.net entry on the Nocturnes here.

• Listen to Nocturne in G minor, Op. 15, No. 3 by Fryderyk Chopin
• Download sheetmusic for Nocturne in G minor, Op. 15, No. 3 by Fryderyk Chopin

Smack-dab in the middle of Chopin’s Op. 25 Etudes lies this unique and memorable piece that is unlike any other Chopin creation. And one that has generated a considerable amount of ink over the decades.

Sometimes it’s called the “‘Cello Etude,” because the prominent melody is in the left hand, approximating the range of a cello. Others have called it “A Duet between a He and a She.” Or perhaps you prefer “Morbidly Elegaic?” Ballade-like? A Missing Nocturne?

Another school of thought says plainly: It’s an Etude. It’s supposed to help you with perfecting you piano technique. And the technique here is an exquisitely difficult phrasing and balance question – making the left hand carry the melody without being overpowered by the right — when the natural tendency is to go the other way.

Oh, and just to mess you up a little further, the left and right hand are playing quite independent musical lines that need to coincide at key moments.

So, for the final word, let’s transport you back to G.C. Ashton Jonson, author of the 1905 tome A Handbook to Chopin’s Works: (For the Use of Concert-Goers, Pianists, and Pianola Players):

Hear Chopin Project Artistic Director Arthur Greene perform Chopin’s unique Etude in C-sharp Minor, Op. 25, No. 7.

Read the Wikipedia entry here.

Read the Chopinmusic.net entry here.

• Download sheetmusic for Etude in C-sharp minor, Op. 25 No. 7 by Fryderyk Chopin