Lugansky - Chopin Nocturne Op. 27, No. 2 in D-flat major

Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849) Nocturne Op. 27, No. 2 in D-flat major (1835-1836) Lento sostenuto Nikolai Lugansky, 2014, Festival de la Grange de Meslay “... The D flat major…is through-composed and goal-directed, and its construction is immensely subtle. There are two alternating melodies, of which the first is non-repetitive and aria-like, elaborated with an ever more expressive ornamentation, but remaining essentially static, if music can ever be static. The energy and momentum is provided by the second, stanzaic melody, which is developmental in character. Here the ornamentation has a rather different function. It is not so much an expressive enhancement of the melody as a means of driving the music in a dynamic and evolutionary way towards its major tension points; in other words it plays a key structural role in the music. Taken together, the two themes represent Chopin’s ornamental melody at its finest. The opera house was one obvious influence; Mozart another.“