Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin,was a Polish composer and
virtuoso pianist of the Romantic era, who wrote
primarily for the solo piano. He gained and has
maintained renown worldwide as one of the leading
musicians of his era, whose "poetic genius was based on
a professional technique that was without equal in his
generation." Chopin was born in what was then the Duchy
of Warsaw, and grew up in Warsaw, which after 1815
became part of Congress Poland. A child prodigy, he
completed his musical education...(+)
Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin,was a Polish composer and
virtuoso pianist of the Romantic era, who wrote
primarily for the solo piano. He gained and has
maintained renown worldwide as one of the leading
musicians of his era, whose "poetic genius was based on
a professional technique that was without equal in his
generation." Chopin was born in what was then the Duchy
of Warsaw, and grew up in Warsaw, which after 1815
became part of Congress Poland. A child prodigy, he
completed his musical education and composed many of
his works in Warsaw before leaving Poland at the age of
20, less than a month before the outbreak of the
November 1830 Uprising.
The piano pieces of Chopin changed the way the piano
was played, not so much in the technical sense as with
Liszt, but in the expressiveness required of the
pianist. In shorter works, Chopin experimented with
textures and sonorities, creating an utterly distinct
piano style. Perhaps the most unusual and individual of
the shorter forms is the mazurka, which reflects the
merging of Chopin's cosmopolitan influences in Paris
with his growin consciousness of being Polish. While
retaining the flavor and rhythm of traditional Polish
dances, the mazurkas also reflect the sophisticated
melodic nuances and the coloristic harmonies found in
Chopin's other music. These brief, intimate evocations
of his homeland are perhaps some of Chopin's greatest
contributions to the piano repertoire.
The Nocturnes, Op. 55 are a set of two nocturnes for
solo piano written by Frédéric Chopin. They are his
fifteenth and sixteenth installations in the genre, and
were composed between 1842 and 1844, and published in
August 1844. Chopin dedicated them to his pupil and
admirer Mademoiselle Jane Stirling.
The first, Nocturne in F Minor (Op. 55 No. 1), was
composed between 1842–1844 and is in ternary form
(ABA). Its main theme has a slow 4/4 with a heavy,
steady crotchet beat. It starts with the main theme
which repeats once with only minor variations. The
right hand plays a slow melody and the left hand
accompanies with a bass note and then a chord, in
crotchets. The second section is then played with,
again, the right hand playing the melody and the left
hand accompanying with bass notes and a chord. Although
there are occasional changes to this pattern, for
example the left hand plays a sustained minim with a
crotchet chord above. The main theme then comes back in
with some variations to the first two times it was
played: a triplet phrase is added to the third bar of
the section. The second section is again repeated with
no variations, followed immediately by the first
section again with the triplet sequence. A tempo change
to più mosso speeds up the piece. It starts off with
some fast, triplet quavers and then three loud (forte)
chords. This then repeats three further times until a
completely new section comes in with a melody in the
right hand and triplet broken chords in the left (see
score on left). A descending scale and some large
chords completes this section and leads it onto the
first theme again.
There is then a large variation on the first theme
where the main tune is played with other notes in
between. There is then a large section of arpeggios and
finishing off on six final chords, then modulates to
the parallel key of F major for an interrupted final
cadence. There are two short chorales. The first, at
bars 71–72, marks the transition from B section back
to A, while the second, at 98–101, concludes the
piece, in F major. The piece was described by Frederick
Niecks (Chopin's biographer) as: "we will note only the
flebile [feeble] dolcezza of the first and the last
section, and the inferiority of the more impassioned
middle section".
Source: Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nocturnes,_Op._55_(Chopi
n)).
Although composed for solo piano, I created this
Interpretation of the Nocturne in F Minor (Op. 55 No.
1) for String Quartet (2 Violins, Viola & Cello).
