a. It requires the
grand manner to read it adequately, and the doppio movemento is
exciting to a dramatic degree. I fully agree with Kullak that too
strict adherence to the marking of this section produces the effect of
an "inartistic precipitation" which robs the movement of clarity.
Kleczynski calls the work The Contrition of a Sinner and devotes
several pages to its elucidation. De Lenz chats most entertainingly
with Tausig about it. Indeed, an imposing march of splendor is the
second subject in C. A fitting pendant is this work to the C sharp
minor Nocturne. Both have the heroic quality, both are free from
mawkishness and are of the greater Chopin, the Chopin of the mode
masculine.

Niecks makes a valuable suggestion: "In playing these nocturnes--op.
48--there occurred to me a remark of Schumann's, when he reviewed some
nocturnes by Count Wielhorski. He said that the quick middle movements
which Chopin frequently introduced into his nocturnes are often weaker
than his first conceptions; meaning the first portions of his
nocturnes. Now, although the middle part in the present instances are,
on the contrary, slower movements, yet the judgment holds good; at
least with respect to the first nocturne, the middle part of which has
nothing to recommend it but a full, sonorous instrumentation, if I may
use this word in speaking of one instrument. The middle part of the
second--D flat, molto piu lento--however, is much finer; in it we meet
again, as we did in some other nocturnes, with soothing, simple chord
progressions. When Gutmann studied the C sharp minor Nocturne with
Chopin, the master told him that the middle section--the molto piu
lento in D flat major--should be played as a recitative. 'A tyrant
commands'--the first two chords--he said, 'and the other asks for
mercy.'"

Of course Niecks means the F sharp minor, not the C sharp minor
Nocturne, op. 48, No. 2, dedicated, with the C minor, to Mlle. L.
Duperre.

Opus 55, two nocturnes in F minor and E flat major, need not detain us
long. The first is familiar. Kleczynski devotes a page or more to its
execution. He seeks to vary the return of the chief subject with
nuances--as would an artistic singer the couplets of a classic song.
There are "cries of despair" in it, but at last a "feeling of hope."
Kullak writes of the last measures: "Thank God--the goal is reached!"
It is the relief of a major key after prolonged wanderings in the
minor. It is a nice nocturne, ne