Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2

The E-flat Nocturne is probably the most played piece of solo piano music ever written, which has paradoxically made it difficult to hear freshly. Chopin composed it in 1830-31 in his early twenties, and it established the nocturne as a form in ways that overshadowed John Field, who invented it. The opening melody in the right hand is a pure vocal line — Chopin was explicitly influenced by bel canto opera, and the melody sings with the kind of freedom and ornamental decoration that belongs to a great soprano rather than a keyboard. Underneath it, the left hand maintains a gently rocking accompaniment in wide broken-chord figures that create a harmonic cushion of unusual richness. The melody returns three times, each time more elaborated, more ornamented, as if a singer improvising variations on a theme. The middle section darkens briefly into B-flat minor before the return restores the opening mood. What makes this nocturne specific rather than generically beautiful is the precision of its ornamentation: the trills and turns are not mere decoration but microtonal emotional inflections, the way a singer bends a pitch. It is music for late evening, for a single lamp, for the specific quality of attention that comes after a day has fully concluded. Its familiarity is not a problem if approached as a piece of extreme refinement rather than pleasant background.