A nocturne is of course a night-piece. In liturgical usage, the term "nocturn" refers to three of the night watches of which a matins service consists. In secular music, however, use of the word "notturno" does not antedate the mid-eighteenth century. Haydn, for example, produced many "notturni," even composing some for hurdy-gurdy. Although Chopin probably was not familiar with Haydn's nocturnes, he may well have known those of Adalbert Gyrowetz (1763-1850), a Bohemian composer (one of whose piano concertos Chopin played at a Warsaw charity concert on February 22, 1818, his eighth birthday). But the earliest keyboard pieces that we who know Chopin would recognize instantly as nocturnes are those of the itinerant Irishman John Field (1782-1837). Field is a recklessly neglected second-flight composer, and by his numerous nocturnes he bequeathed to Chopin both their designation and the pattern of a melody above a flowing accompaniment of broken chords. The earliest of Chopin's surviving nocturnes, the E minor, Op. 72, n° 1, composed in 1827, resembles a Field nocturne closely enough so that nobody would have questioned the appearance of'the Irishman's name on it. In fact, Chopin's best nocturnes can be described fairly as what a genius did with the sorts of material which Field invented. Chopin took the essentials of the nocturne nature and intensified them a thonsandfold. In the E minor Nocturne he demonstrated at the age of seventeen that he might some day equal Field, in itself a remarkable achievement. In the A-Flat Nocturne, Op. 32, n° 52, he actually appears to have recast Field's Nocturne n° 5, in B-Flat major, re-creating it in his own image.
Herbert Weinstock (from the original Liner Notes)
Nadia Reisenberg
Plays
Frédéric Chopin
(1810-1849)
Tracks
Nocturnes, vol. 2
1 N° 12 in G major, Op. 37, n° 2 6:12
2 N° 13 in C minor, Op. 48 n° 1 5:47
3 N° 14 in F-Sharp minor, Op. 48, n° 2 7:53
4 N° 15 in F minor, Op. 35, n° 1 4:54
5 N° 16 in E-Flat major, Op. 55, n° 2 5:08
6 N° 17 in B major, Op. 62, n° 1 6:36
7 N° 18 in E major, Op. 62, n° 2 5:12
8 N° 19 in E mnor, Op. 72, n° 1 4:04
9 N° 20 in C-Sharp minor, Op. posth. 3:28
*
Nadia Reisenberg - p
Recorded ca 1956