Chopin - Nocturne in E flat Major - Op.9 No.2 (Kawai K200)

This is the piece that comes to mind when people think about romantic music, Chopin, and nocturne. It is in the top 5 most popular classical pieces of all time, as we see the most viewed video of this piece on Youtube having currently almost 200 million views. Although it is a mainstream piece that gets overplayed, I still think its fame is well deserved, as it is really a beautiful piece. It is not my favorite nocturne, but I always wanted to play it.

Because of its popularity, and the overall slow tempo, this piece is often played prematurely by beginner pianists and the one thing they often do that I wanted to avoid by all means is to accent the third crochet of each tempo in the left hand. For that reason, I tried my best to play the left-hand accompaniment as softly as possible (in most parts), and for that reason, my performance ended up having a lot of failed/ghost notes in the chords of the 2nd and 3rd notes of each tempo. I still prefer having those issues instead of having a left-hand accompaniment that is too loud and overpowering the beautiful signing right-hand melody.

I did this piece as a “technical break” from the more demanding repertoire I’ve been working on. The technical challenges of this piece are not very apparent, but musically, I think tone quality and dynamic control are very hard to master and the main challenges with this piece. In that sense, there are a lot of issues in my interpretation, but I don’t think I can really solve them at this point. It takes a lot of experience to develop the sense of touch required to play any nocturne at a high level. In any case, considering the amount of time I invested in this piece (less than one month), I think my interpretation is quite good.

Let me know what you think in the comments and tell me what is your favorite interpretation of this nocturne. I listened to several performances but wasn’t able to pick a favorite. I really like Moravec’s interpretation, but in some aspects I prefer other recordings.

As always, this recording was made using a pair of condenser microphones, AKG P170, placed above the top lid of my upright piano, a Kawai K200.