Chopin’s Nocturnes are considered to be the very finest short pieces for piano. But why? First, their song-like nature. Second they’re emotional, they wear their heart on their sleeve. Third, they’re short, sweet and relatable. You don’t need to sit through an hour of something to get to the point – they’re bite sized.

Tonight’s concert includes No. 2 from his Op. 9 collection – possibly the most famous of them all, used in films ranging from A Real Pain to The Truman Show via TV series like The Simpsons. Plus we have No. 2 from Op. 27 – chilled and velvety smooth, like a certain brand of chocolate, and No. 1 from Op. 48, an explosion of grief and tragedy.

Musical Algebra

You might be wondering about what an Op. is or what a No.is. And to be honest, that’s totally fair. Op. stands for Opus, which is a way of cataloguing a composers music. Necessary when someone wrote as many pieces as Chopin did. Opus numbers can give you an idea of whether the music was composed early to late in a composers career (low to high numbers) and for some pieces with pretty generic titles (and yes we are are particularly looking at Chopin here and his many Polonaises, Nocturnes and Mazurkas) can help you identify the specific piece.

Each Opus is broken down into pieces with an individual number (No.), so you’ll have a piece of music which is the 3rd work in the composers 5th Opus being ‘Op. 5 No. 3’. And of course something which is regarded as a composer or artists best work is often called their ‘magnum’ Opus. So good that magnums of champagne and the ice cream were named after it…