Nocturne in C-sharp minor, B. 49 (Lento con gran espressione)

The piece

Chopin wrote this nocturne around the age of twenty and did not publish it; it is often called by its heading, Lento con gran espressione. The middle section changes metre, moves into triple time, speeds up and quotes a theme from his Concerto in F minor. Roman Polanski’s film The Pianist brought it to a wide audience. The score used here was compared with two other independent transcriptions, and notes were corrected wherever those two agreed against it.

The core of the work lies in the right-hand runs: groups of quick notes that do not always line up with the left hand’s beats. They are not free cadenzas; each run must fit inside its bar. Find the notes that coincide with the bass, then spread the others between them; Noctave’s loop helps you secure these passages one at a time. The tempo changes several times (Lento, Animato, Adagio, then back to the first tempo), and the ending, una corda, grows softer and softer.