

Chopin - Berceuse Op. 57 in D♭ Major
This piece is so underrated in my opinion and is one of my favourite Chopin pieces. Here's some background info.
In the summer of 1843, Chopin wrote one of his most mature and subtlest works: the Berceuse in D flat major, Op. 57, a lullaby to be played on the piano. The manuscript of the work’s first sketch was in the possession of Pauline Viardot, hence we may guess that this delicate and tender music was inspired by Chopin’s fascination with the ‘personality’ of Mrs Viardot’s daughter, Louisette. The little creature may have aroused in Chopin memories of the atmosphere of his own family home. The Berceuse, composed at Nohant, appears to constitute a distant echo of a song that Chopin’s mother sang to him: the romance of Laura and Philo, ‘Już miesiąć zeszedł, psy się uśpily’ [The moon now has risen, the dogs are asleep].
The Berceuse consists of a series of variations on that theme remembered from his childhood. They are quite singular variations, not divided by rests, barely four bars in length, sailing on a single wave – the arabesque of an increasingly subtle and elaborate melody. Above all, they sail over a single bass figure repeated several dozen times, known as a basso ostinato. Only for a moment, just before the end, does Chopin have the melody run above a different sounding bass.
Its course was summarised by Zdzisław Jachimecki: ‘At first the melody of the Berceuse shows itself in its entirety. It is joined by the middle voice, which with its syncopations banters with the theme [bars 7–10]. Subsequently, the theme sounds solely in grace notes [bars 15–18]. Finally, it is pulverised into some luminous dust, transformed into a volatile state of almost immaterial little passages, trills and fioriture [bars 44–46]. Then (in the ending) it returns in its original form [bars 63–66]’.
In the summer of 1843, Chopin wrote one of his most mature and subtlest works: the Berceuse in D flat major, Op. 57, a lullaby to be played on the piano. The manuscript of the work’s first sketch was in the possession of Pauline Viardot, hence we may guess that this delicate and tender music was inspired by Chopin’s fascination with the ‘personality’ of Mrs Viardot’s daughter, Louisette. The little creature may have aroused in Chopin memories of the atmosphere of his own family home. The Berceuse, composed at Nohant, appears to constitute a distant echo of a song that Chopin’s mother sang to him: the romance of Laura and Philo, ‘Już miesiąć zeszedł, psy się uśpily’ [The moon now has risen, the dogs are asleep].
The Berceuse consists of a series of variations on that theme remembered from his childhood. They are quite singular variations, not divided by rests, barely four bars in length, sailing on a single wave – the arabesque of an increasingly subtle and elaborate melody. Above all, they sail over a single bass figure repeated several dozen times, known as a basso ostinato. Only for a moment, just before the end, does Chopin have the melody run above a different sounding bass.
Its course was summarised by Zdzisław Jachimecki: ‘At first the melody of the Berceuse shows itself in its entirety. It is joined by the middle voice, which with its syncopations banters with the theme [bars 7–10]. Subsequently, the theme sounds solely in grace notes [bars 15–18]. Finally, it is pulverised into some luminous dust, transformed into a volatile state of almost immaterial little passages, trills and fioriture [bars 44–46]. Then (in the ending) it returns in its original form [bars 63–66]’.
Link to this sequence: 4400000
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