So, the Nocturne in E major from the set of Op. 62. It was actually Chopin's last set of Nocturnes that he wrote, that was published during his lifetime. It's a pair of two nocturnes, B major and E major. They're quite similar.
They're both quite large and deep pieces. And there's an element of the late Chopin style of very dense writing. with several layers of voices singing their parts in beautiful counterpoint.
But kind of a lot of things happening at the same time. And in this E major Nocturne it's a lot of that in the middle section. In the opening, the first melody, it's more open and relaxed though, this. You can almost see it as a precursor to the Satie-Gymnopédies. That's the famous pieces like this.
That's another French composer but later in history. This... This chord...
That's kind of the same ambience, very laid back. I always think of these kind of cultural salons that they had in Chopin's time. So I imagine how he gathered with his friends of fellow composers and artists and writers and they would stay up all night.
and discussing philosophy and the arts and drinking cognac and smoking cigars. And this melody it's almost like you can follow a line of thought or a conversation in this setting, kind of trying out the direction and making its way forward. And here we get back a return of the main melody, the first melody again. It's a small variation. Here though we take another direction, it's going more uneasy here.
It really reaches a big climax in very little time. You have a very wide range in the piano from down here to up here. And the melody has these extreme leaps. It's very unusual. So.
Kind of really making a statement, but then falling back and then This is a new episode starting here and this chord Is very like unsure like a seed of doubt has been planted here repeating the same pattern but one note higher the bass line starts descending with all these kind of unsure chords with the tension in them You get another one of these kind of... It's a sudden emotional outburst in minor and a lot of tension But then so gracefully We get back to the same first melody in E major so so maybe Because we get back so easily, maybe it wasn't such a big deal, this outburst, the doubt. Maybe it was more rhetorical, you know.
So then... Now we get another variation, a lot of notes, kind of a butterfly variation. Really adding some flair. This movement pattern is actually... there's an etude Chopin wrote with just that pattern for the whole etude.
It's an F major opus 10 number 8. And already here, it's a lot of things to say in this music. Something very interesting happens here, because now we get the melody for the third time, and now it takes another direction, kind of straight away. And this deep note in the bass, the B, is going to turn to a C. It's going to be like a whole new exciting harmony, and so...
It's a lovely feeling of like it's like it's falling into place somehow But then the seed of doubt Where is it going this time? Yet another one of these kind of sudden outbursts, but it's not so much tension this time. It's very It's kind of a nostalgic chord some pain, but in a major setting so Takes the melody to a close in the nice safe E major.
And here starts a second section with some contrasting material. Now we have an accompaniment in the left hand. It's still piano and soft in the music, the dynamic, but this accompaniment figure has a lot of unresting energy in it.
It's like waves going up and down and very interesting, it has this, it's called neighbor notes when it's notes right next to each other. Then it's chromatic notes when it's the smallest steps between the notes. And then the melody is just cruising on top of that. Singing there Suddenly going back to the deep bass Gospel thing It's like a cry of real pain here suddenly again Building some momentum and this goes straight into a third section of new material yet again So it's kind of a brief section so So this is such lovely writing. It's a lot of things going on here as you can see.
We have the melody in the right hand. The left hand has some kind of melodic fragments but also these neighbor notes and chromatic things from before. It's more than just an accompanying line, it's got this scale In the middle you have some accompaniment in a syncopated rhythm it's called It's kind of groovy, so... Chord here, and with the melody Kind of groovy, so everything together And here in the third bar you actually have a full canon So canon is where two voices play the same melody, but they start at different times.
So the right hand plays And then the left hand. So together. It's such beautiful counterpoint writing and this is the kind of music that it bears many listenings in order to fully get to know what's going on, to get to know it better.
Okay, so Canon And here is an interesting mechanism of it just takes the last couple of notes and repeats them over and over again Repeat it in another position. It's something you can do if you improvise. You can take just the last bit and repeat it if you need some time to come up with a new idea. So it buys you some time. But it has some function when you listen to it as well because you recognize it's...
It's a repetition, but it makes it interesting when you find a new position for it. And there's another piece of Chopin, his Etude in same key E major, Opus 10 number 3, where he has the same thing. It's just before the recapitulation of the main melody, so this is the Etude.
So you've had a big outburst of virtuosic display and then just finds kind of this idea. It just repeats this like a smaller fragment of it each time. Reposition. Just the last bit Just two notes There's the melody Just very organically growing out of that repetition. It's interesting because it's the same keys.
I find a similarity between these works. So in the Nocturne now you have this. And here we finally find this new and exciting chord. The bass note makes this chord. And here it's like, yeah, this part isn't over yet.
We're gonna go for one more round, is what Chopin is saying here. And this is exactly the same idea but in another harmony here with the cannon and everything Turn That melody here very suddenly you just thrown back into the it's the melody from the beginning the first theme and it really comes as a surprise so this transition bar with just an arpeggio of this chord you have to really kind of slow down so you get back from the agitato character of the section And here, here as well there's a very interesting point in the music. It's so full of interesting things in this music.
So normally in a nocturne we would kind of expect a recapitulation, a repeat of the melody, like the full melody, because we had like one and a half page of it in the beginning. But here, after just two bars, Chopin is doing a modulation thing. It's like that place that occurs in the end of the first melody, the first time, where it kind of falls into place because it finds a new way for the harmony to go. And this comes right after just two bars immediately.
So here again it's like Srupan is saying, I'm not done exploring things in this music, hang on a minute. That's the seed of doubt again. It's kind of familiar, but it still takes a new way here.
It's reaching upward. So it's like, where is it going this time? It's like we find, reach a new understanding with this doubt this time.
We... See, so this was the thing that was gonna come. Of course that's also the thing that takes us back to the home key of E major. So after it's very short recapitulation of this theme and already we're done with it in E major. And then this is the second theme with all these chromatic neighbor notes and resting energy going on.
And here we actually get the full repetition of that theme, just some small variations. Here though it takes a new direction of course. It's a lovely chord.
Now you can kind of feel it's gonna end here. And here in the very end you get the same kind of really nice lush chords as the Nocturne in B major just before this one in the same set, Op. 62. So this chord. In music theory it's called a subdominant major seventh chord. But I would call it a backyard chord because it's close to your home, E major. So it's in your backyard and it's the cosiest of backyards.
Resolving, the melody is resolving all the way to E here. Just really finding a resting place in the E major chord. This music is so interesting to just follow and kind of see where it takes you. The piece is very consistent.
There's only a few outbursts, but they're quite brief. And the middle section in agitato even if it's a higher level of energy it still follows a very organic line of growing and falling so you can follow it along the way. Also with this music there's kind of a shimmer of something mystical about it.
Something that's in the dark you don't see it in daytime but it comes out at night. the time for the nocturnes. And for me this aspect is truly fully developed and mastered by Chopin in these late nocturnes, this set in opus 62. There are other aspects of nocturnes that's more prominent in earlier nocturnes you have a kind of a hopeful and exciting aspects in some of the early ones opus 9 and opus 15 and you have another aspect of very heavy and serious and faithful in like C minor and F minor nocturnes but this in the late late Chopin style is something else Oh If you enjoyed this video, please subscribe to my channel and support my work on Patreon at patreon.com slash sonarasecrets. And stay tuned for a new video every week.