Frédéric Chopin - Nocturne in C-sharp minor, Op. 27 No. 1
Pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy
It was tough choosing which of Chopin’s nocturnes to upload. Quite a few of them sound very similar without an obvious standout, but the idiosyncratic ones, to my ear, give up some of their earnest loveliness in exchange for being unique.
This one, though, is both lovely and wild. It sounds polite enough in the beginning, but the left hand’s slow ebb of rising and falling arpeggios—in place of the usual ascending broken chord—gives off the impression that all is not quite as it seems. The contrasting middle section (almost all the Nocturnes follow an A-B-A thematic plan) starts off with an ominous buzzing sound made by left-hand trills before coming to a fortissimo chordal climax that ranks among Chopin’s least subtle moments.
Some of Chopin’s Nocturnes are pretty easy to play, and some are trickier than they look, but this is one of only a handful that looks Beethoven-scary on paper. It’s fairly demanding, and the impulse to hammer out the major mode climax certainly comes from the feeling that one has earned it.* However, and I don’t mean this as a slight on the staggering Mr. Ashkenazy at all, but I’d love to hear a performer who has the guts to play it delicately. After all, those who heard him swear that Chopin never played a note above mezzo forte in his life.
* I would imagine. I can’t play this.
