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Updated: June 23, 2025
How full it can be of expressiveness you know from the Songs without Words by Mendelssohn, and the Nocturnes of Chopin; how full of flickering humor you hear in the Scherzo of a Beethoven symphony; how full of deep solemnity and grief one feels in the funeral marches. This school of composition has been followed by both the greater and the lesser masters.
The fantastic melodies of wandering gypsy songs went throbbing through the room; rollicking gavots, Hungarian dances, low and slumbrous nocturnes. As the music grew sadder and dreamier, the smoker moved uneasily. Somehow, it gripped his heart; and the long years of loneliness returned and overwhelmed him.
When this kind of inspiration laid hold of Chopin his playing assumed a distinctive character, whatever the kind of music he executed might be dance-music or dreamy music, mazurkas or nocturnes, preludes or scherzos, waltzes or tarantellas, studies or ballades.
There was quite a long silence, but as we did not hear him moving about, he probably sat on at the piano, for presently, in a whisper, you may say, more to himself than to us, he sang that Scotch song, "Turn ye to me," which to my ear at least stands a head and shoulders taller and lovelier than any folk song in all the world, unless it's that Norman sailor song that Chopin used in one of the Nocturnes.
Fifteen years ago he told me he was composing a 'Nocturne' for me. I went off on a concert tour and was away a long time. When I returned to Paris I wrote to Debussy to find out what had become of my 'Nocturne. And he replied that, somehow, it had shaped itself up for orchestra instead of a violin solo. It is one of the Trois Nocturnes for orchestra.
In Monday's concert Chopin had chosen in preference those of his works which swerve more from the classical forms. He played neither concerto, nor sonata, nor fantasia, nor variations, but preludes, studies, nocturnes, and mazurkas. Addressing himself to a society rather than to a public, he could show himself with impunity as he is, an elegiac poet, profound, chaste, and dreamy.
Were it not wrong to speak of anything as absolutely best, their excellences would induce one to call them unequalled. A striking feature in them compared with Chopin's other works is their healthy freshness and vigour. Even the slow, dreamy, and elegiac ones have none of the faintness and sickliness to be found in not a few of the composer's pieces, especially in several of the nocturnes.
Soft pink and rose for love music, tender blues and shades of gray for nocturnes and night pieces are some of the affinities of tone and color. Warm shades of yellow and golden brown suggest an atmosphere of early autumn, while delicate or vivid greens give thoughts of spring and luscious summer.
They are not altogether to the taste of this generation; they seem to be suffering from anaemia. However, there are a few noble nocturnes; and methods of performance may have much to answer for the sentimentalizing of some others. More vigor, a quickening of the time-pulse, and a less languishing touch will rescue them from lush sentiment.
He took especial delight in playing Chopin's Nocturnes, no Sunday ever passed without his family hearing him play two or three of them. He studied music in London under Moscheles, and, though not an eminent pianist, was a good teacher. His amiability assured him a warm welcome in society. Eduard Pirkhert died at Vienna, aged 63, on February 28, 1881. To Mr.
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