ime in public at the Chopin
Commemoration Concert, held in the autumn of 1894 at Zelazowa
Wola, and afterward at Warsaw. This nocturne was addressed by
Chopin to his sister Louise, at Warsaw, in a letter from
Paris, and was written soon after the production of the two
lovely piano concertos, when Chopin was still a very young
man. It contains a quotation from his most admired Concerto in
F minor, and a brief reference to the charming song known as
the Maiden's Wish, two of his sister's favorite melodies. The
manuscript of the nocturne was supposed to have been destroyed
in the sacking of the Zamojski Palace, at Warsaw, toward the
end of the insurrection of 1863, but it was discovered quite
recently among papers of various kinds in the possession of a
Polish gentleman, a great collector, whose son offered Mr.
Polinski the privilege of selecting from such papers. His
choice was three manuscripts of Chopin's, one of them being
this nocturne. A letter from Mr. Polinski on the subject of
this nocturne is in the possession of Miss Janotha.

Is this the nocturne of which Tausig spoke to his pupil Joseffy as
belonging to the Master's "best period," or did he refer to the one in
E minor?

The Berceuse, op. 57, published June, 1845, and dedicated to Mlle.
Elise Gavard, is the very sophistication of the art of musical
ornamentation. It is built on a tonic and dominant bass--the triad of
the tonic and the chord of the dominant seventh. A rocking theme is set
over this basso ostinato and the most enchanting effects are produced.
The rhythm never alters in the bass, and against this background, the
monotone of a dark, gray sky, the composer arranges an astonishing
variety of fireworks, some florid, some subdued, but all delicate in
tracery and design. Modulations from pigeon egg blue to Nile green,
most misty and subtle modulations, dissolve before one's eyes, and for
a moment the sky is peppered with tiny stars in doubles, each
independently tinted. Within a small segment of the chromatic bow
Chopin has imprisoned new, strangely dissonant colors. It is a miracle;
and after the drawn-out chord of the dominant seventh and the rain of
silvery fire ceases one realizes that the whole piece is a delicious
illusion, but an ululation in the key of D flat, the apotheosis of
pyrotechnical colorature.

Niecks quotes Alexandre Dumas fils, who calls the Berceuse "muted
music," but introduces a Turkish bath