Frédéric Chopin

Nocturnes

Chopin's nocturnes seem to be the most romantic; together with the mazurkas, they belong to the group of works by the master which is also accessible to the less experienced player. Both may explain the continued popularity of these musically eminently richly nuanced miniatures. Like all Chopin publications within the Wiener Urtext Edition supervised by Jan Ekier, the soloist, pedagogue and scholar, the present edition is also richly annotated: in addition to Critical Notes and Notes on Interpretation, authentic variants - a general characteristic of Chopin - are again provided; they are most abundant in the famous E flat major Nocturne (Op. 9. no. 2), which therefore appears twice in our edition: in the second edition the variants are reproduced in their entirety; in an impressive way they point to the improvisatory moment of Chopin's art. The edition contains the 18 nocturnes from operas 9, 15, 27, 32, 37, 48, 55 and 62, as well as three from the estate: the very early Nocturne in E minor, Nocturne in C minor (presumably from the last year of the master's life) and the Lento con gran espressione (Nocturne in C sharp minor), in which Chopin quotes from other of his works.