Musical Form
Nocturne
A quiet, lyrical piece evoking the mood of night.
Solo / Keyboard
A nocturne ("night piece") is typically a solo piano work with a slow tempo, a singing, lyrical melody over a flowing accompaniment, and a generally reflective, dreamlike mood evoking nighttime. It's less a strict form than a mood and character - there's no required structure the way there is for a fugue or sonata-form movement.
How a nocturne is built
Most nocturnes share a recognizable shape. The left hand plays a broad, rocking accompaniment - often wide-spread broken chords, made possible by the piano's sustain pedal - while the right hand sings a long, expressive melody above it. Many follow a simple three-part plan: a calm opening, a more agitated or contrasting middle section, and a return to the opening melody, now more richly decorated. Performers play them with flexible rubato, letting the tempo breathe like a singer's phrasing.
The inventor: John Field
The Irish composer John Field is credited with inventing the genre in the early 1800s. A pupil of the pianist Muzio Clementi, he settled in Russia, where he published his first nocturnes in 1812 and went on to write about eighteen of them. His gentle, songlike pieces were widely admired - and they caught the ear of a young Polish pianist.
Chopin's nocturnes
It's Frédéric Chopin who perfected the nocturne and made it famous: his 21 nocturnes are among the most beloved works in the solo piano repertoire, prized for their intimate, songlike melodies. The texture Chopin favored - a steady, often arpeggiated left-hand accompaniment supporting a freely ornamented, voice-like right-hand melody - borrows directly from Italian bel canto opera, and part of the nocturne's lasting appeal is exactly that operatic sense of a single singer performing alone. Chopin also deepened the genre, with stormy middle sections and harmonies far richer than Field's.
Other nocturnes
Later composers kept the mood while stretching the form:
- Gabriel Fauré wrote thirteen piano nocturnes over more than forty years, more harmonically adventurous than Chopin's.
- Debussy's orchestral Nocturnes (1899) - "Clouds," "Festivals," and "Sirens" - apply the same nighttime atmosphere to a full orchestra.
- Mendelssohn's "Nocturne" from his music for A Midsummer Night's Dream features a famous, tender French horn solo.
- Borodin's String Quartet No. 2 includes a beloved slow movement, "Notturno."
In the 18th century, the Italian word notturno had meant something different: a light piece of evening entertainment for a small ensemble, like a serenade.
Famous nocturnes
- Chopin - Nocturne in E-flat major, Op. 9 No. 2.
- Chopin - Nocturne in C-sharp minor (published after his death).
- Chopin - Nocturne in D-flat major, Op. 27 No. 2.
- Field - Nocturne No. 5 in B-flat major.
- Fauré - Nocturne No. 6.
Where to start listening: Chopin's Nocturne in E-flat major, Op. 9, No. 2 is the genre's single most recognizable piece - a good introduction to both the nocturne and to Chopin generally. Then compare it with a Field nocturne to hear where Chopin's style began.