Inspired by night, the Nocturne first came into our musical language in the 18th century, but the idea of a night-time work comes from the ancient church, where ‘nocturn’ was the last of the seven prayers of the day. Held at the 9th hour of the night, midnight, it was associated with the story of the Passion.
Maria Wodzińska: Frédéric Chopin at age 25, 1835 (National Museum, Warsaw)
John Singer Sargent: Gabriel Fauré, 1889 (Paris: Musée de la musique, Cité de la musique)
Jump forward several centuries, and a nocturne is music for evening parties, music to be played in the background and then just as quickly forgotten. Mozart wrote several, but it was the Irish composer John Field who made the piano version of the genre his own. Next, it passed to Chopin, who took it out of the realm of forgettable and made it memorable. He wrote 21 nocturnes and inspired later composers from Fauré and Satie to Scriabin and Poulenc.
Tamayo Ikeda
In this album by Japanese pianist Tamayo Ikeda, Le Nocturne, looks at nocturnes by only two composers: Chopin and Fauré, alternating the 10 tracks between the two. We open with Fauré’s Nocturne No. 6, Op. 63 in D flat major, which Ikeda calls ‘an object of contemplation’. We’re not working our way through a romantic drama but through something more thoughtful.
In these alternating works, we have different visions of the night. Many of Chopin’s are shadowy and mystical. Fauré’s, on the other hand, takes us deeper within our own thoughts, not into a separate world.
Frédéric Chopin: Nocturne, Op. 9, No. 1 in B flat minor
Gabriel Fauré: Nocturne No. 6, Op. 63 in D flat major
Fauré’s early works still carry an imprint of Robert Schumann’s influence, rather than that of Chopin, because Fauré was envisioning the Nocturne so differently. Much of Schumann’s piano works are about himself, his fiancé/wife, and their friends – a very constrained circle. Chopin, on the other hand, exiled in Paris and fighting his own health problems, wanted somewhere to escape and each of their works illustrated these two different goals.
Tamayo Ikeda’s playing matches the different aesthetics of her composers and provides a nicely thoughtful survey of two composers’ interpretations of the same word….but oh so differently.
Tamayo Ikeda: Fauré and Chopin: Le Nocturne
Ulysses Arts – UA240020
Release Date: 11 October 2024
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