Chopin: Nocturne in C Sharp Minor, Op. Post

This nocturne in C sharp minor is possibly my favorite piece by Chopin. While listening the melody is very strong throughout and sounds as if it should be performed by a soprano singing of a lost, found, and lost again love. The introduction uses a very simple chord progression, played very softly: I-V-IV-I-V-I, and then played again but even more quietly. The introduction creates a very nice contrast to the first theme. The introduction contains blocked chords and the first theme plays the left hand notes in the chord separately accompanying the melody in the right hand. Throughout the entire piece, except for one small excursion, the left hand uses the same rhythmically separated chords to accompany the melodic right hand. Also, it sounds as if the right hand only plays one note at a time, making the melody easy to focus on and even stronger. The introduction uses the natural minor scale, which is often during the song: do-te-le-sol-fi-sol. After the introduction, there seems to be a sort of A-B-C-A pattern. Section A has a slow melody with few non-chord tones: sol-fa-me-fa-sol-do. Section B is much different and sounds happier than Section A because it modulates to some major key and the melody has faster rhythms. It still uses the same accompanying left hand part as the beginning. Section C is the short little excursion which is still in a major key. It sounds bouncy and very different from the beginning using some sort of dotted rhythms. The end of this section plays up the key's major I triad before returning to section A. The second playing of A is slightly different with a change in the melody to eventually bring us to the end of the piece. Before the end there are four runs up the C sharp minor scale with the left hand playing I-V-I-V over and over again, the same way as the rest of the piece, and finally brings us to an authentic cadence.
I enjoy the modulations in this piece that allow the song to go from sad sounding, to happy, and then sad again. This song is quiet and peaceful for the most part and makes me want to take a nap, in a good way. The melody makes me wish I were a ballerina or something, or that someone else should do a dance to it.