Can a Piece of Music Be About Night? A Mood Turned Into a Form

The title does not indicate a form in the way that a sonata or a fugue does, since these pieces vary considerably in structure, and it does not describe a scene in the way a piece of programme music might. What it indicates is a character, namely something reflective, unhurried, lyrical and intimate, and that character comes with practical implications. A singing melody sits over an accompaniment that supports rather than competes. Dynamics stay mostly quiet, with the expressive range compressed into that quiet band. Tempo bends freely. Ornaments decorate the line the way a singer would decorate it. A performer reading the title knows the approach before reading a note.

Most examples share a recognisable arrangement:

• •A left hand pattern of spread chords covering a wide range, held by the pedal
• •A right hand melody written to imitate a singing voice
• •A three part shape, with a contrasting middle section and a varied return
• •The returning melody decorated more elaborately than at its first appearance
• •A quiet close, frequently fading rather than concluding emphatically
• •Keys and harmonies chosen for colour rather than for structural argument

The form was established by John Field, an Irish composer and pianist who settled in Russia and published the first pieces under the name from 1812, working out the arrangement of a singing melody over spread accompaniment that everything afterwards follows. Frederic Chopin took the genre up and wrote around twenty one examples that are now far better known than their model, extending the harmonic language considerably, and Field is reported to have been unimpressed. The immediate ancestor of the style is Italian opera, specifically the long decorated vocal lines of the early nineteenth century, which Chopin admired explicitly and which explains why the melodies are written as though for a voice and why they need to be shaped by breath.

The genre did not stop with its most famous practitioner and the later examples pull in different directions. Gabriel Faure wrote thirteen over five decades, which grow steadily less decorative and more harmonically searching, and the late ones are among the most demanding music written for the instrument. Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel both wrote pieces evoking night that abandon the singing melody entirely in favour of atmosphere and colour, which shows the title detaching from the form Field established. Erik Satie and later Francis Poulenc wrote sets that treat the convention with affection and irony. Twentieth century composers applied the name to orchestral movements and to pieces for other instruments. The common thread by then was the mood rather than any shared construction.

These pieces expose a performer in ways that more obviously difficult music does not. The notes are frequently manageable while the shaping is not, since a singing line on an instrument whose notes begin to die the instant they are struck has to be created through timing and weight rather than through sustaining. The accompaniment must be present and must not obscure, which is a matter of balance between the hands that is harder than it looks. The pedal has to blend the spread chords without smearing the melody, and the right amount changes with the instrument and the room. And the freedom of tempo has to sound spontaneous while remaining coherent, which is the oldest argument in performing this repertoire.

The title indicates a character rather than a form, and it tells a performer to expect a singing melody over supporting accompaniment, quiet dynamics and flexible tempo. John Field established the genre from 1812 and Chopin extended it into the pieces that are now far better known. The style descends from Italian operatic vocal writing, which is why the melodies need to be shaped as a singer would shape them.