The melody of the second of the Nocturnes from 1846, in the key of E major, proceeds lento sostenuto – slowly and with a stifled voice. It stifles the emotions here, which are present beneath the ostensibly calm declamation, wending its way over accompaniment chords measured out with demureness and implacable consistency. The narrative emerges from silence and returns to silence, after relishing a plenitude of sound. The strength of emotion is articulated by the expression of the melody which complements the initial idea. It explodes, shattering the melody’s calm passage with sudden leaps and runs, before picking up the broken thread a moment later. The hitherto pent-up emotions are given their head in the middle section of the Nocturne. Chopin has this music – restless, even convulsively tense – played forte and agitato, and so like nervous speech. The agitation soon subsides, however, giving way to the principal melody. This comes about in a wondrously beautiful way: the melody returns with greater calm and poise than before the eruption of that inner storm – absent, aloof.Having read what his predecessor, Frederick Niecks, wrote about the E major Nocturne, James Huneker took umbrage: ‘Its song is almost declamatory and not at all sentimental – unless so distorted – as Niecks would have us imagine’. And indeed, what marks this music most of all is that distance – standing aloof.Author: Mieczysław TomaszewskiA series of programmes entitled ‘Fryderyk Chopin's Complete Works’Polish Radio 2