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Updated: June 23, 2025
He played, with a queer lingering touch which had something of hesitation in it, and which reduced all music to a succession of soft chords, The Maid of Dundee and Annie Laurie, The Banks of Banna and The Last Rose of Summer, then one of the simpler nocturnes of Chopin, and, following these, a quaint, slow melody which was like all of the others and yet like none.
"When Dave winds up, he goes along the line of them tremblin' towerists, an' they contreebutes 'leven dollars. "'They aims to go stampedin' off with them nocturnes, an' 'peggios, an' arias, an' never say nothin', says Dave; 'but they can't work no twist like that, an' me a-ridin' herd; none whatever.
Kullak dilates upon a peculiarity of Chopin: the dispersed position of his underlying harmonies. This in a footnote to the eleventh study of op. 10. Here one must let go the critical valve, else strangle in pedagogics. So much has been written, so much that is false, perverted sentimentalism and unmitigated cant about the nocturnes, that the wonder is the real Chopin lover has not rebelled.
The forms of Chopin's compositions grew out of the keyboard of the piano, and their genre is so peculiar that it is nearly impracticable to transpose them for any other instrument. Some of the noted contemporary violinists have attempted to transpose a few of the Nocturnes and Études, but without success.
Liszt's statement that the Nocturnes of Field were regarded by Chopin as "insuffisants" seems to me disproved by unexceptionable evidence. Chopin schooled his pupils most assiduously and carefully in the Nocturnes as well as in the Concertos of Field, who was, to use Madame Dubois's words, "an author very sympathetic to him."
Whistler's nocturnes are clear statements of plain fact, lilac-coloured canvases void of design or tone, or quality of paint, are accepted by a complacent public, and bought by American millionaires for vast sums; and the early canvases about which Paris would not once tolerate a word of praise, are now considered old-fashioned.
His polonaises and nocturnes are vastly superior to those of Weber and Field; and his poetic preludes, his romantic ballads, his lovely berçeuse, his amorous mazurkas, are new types in art which have often been imitated but never equalled. Only in one field did Chopin have a dangerous rival among his predecessors, namely, in the Waltz.
Beethoven, though he remained faithful to it, felt its fetters, as is shown by his numerous poetic licenses. Schubert wrote "Moments Musicals," Mendelssohn, "Songs without Words," Weber, Polonaises, and Field, Nocturnes. But these were merely straws which indicated in which direction Chopin's genius would sweep the field and clear the musical atmosphere.
I refer, especially, to the endings of his last two nocturnes and to the final bars of the mazurka, opus 59, No. 3. George Sand has given us a vivid sketch of Chopin's conscientiousness as a composer.
Field's nocturnes are now neglected so curious are Time's caprices and without warrant, for not only is Field the creator of the form, but in both his concertos and nocturnes he has written charming, sweet and sane music. He rather patronized Chopin, for whose melancholy pose he had no patience.
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