Chopin’s Nocturne 15.3 never returns to the place it began. Unlike other musical pieces, it lacks the return that draws the listener back, the repeated elements that unite the piece as a whole. Everything in it is played twice, as the piece moves forward, getting darker, rising to an angry crescendo. At its climax, the chords sound like splintering glass, before descending wearily into halting, lingering chords. Pensive chords. The music turns in on itself and the last measures are played with stark determination, followed by light notes that seem to trace small, delicate circles around a dark core, all the while inching forward. The song ends with a heavy-hearted finality in a place far from where it started. Conceptually, it’s a linear passage from point A to point B. Critics note that there are four distinct parts, but to an untrained ear, they blend so seamlessly together, it seems you cannot detach them without ripping the whole apart. Each is a necessary stage for the story to be properly told.
Heartache is this
song. A song that denies you the possibility of return. And you ache for familiarity
-- long for the chorus you know to swoop in, and pull you close in its
comforting embrace. Yet the song is relentless. It marches on in an unpredictable
fashion and offers you no refuge. Nor is there relief to be had at the end of
this journey – only one last indulgent chord. Confusion, despite a satiation of
the senses.
Others may
disagree, but you find this particular nocturne to be both masterful and
utterly forgettable. It is unique in its purpose and it serves as a reminder of
a cold-hearted linearity. You celebrate beauty in the parts as they unfold, but
the whole is not a structure you would aim to recreate. It lacks the strong
return that haunts you in your most pensive moments, the core that you
immediately recognize as the one true thing.
It lacks the melody that crosses bridges and endures transitions. Chopin’s
Nocturne 15.3 is a mystery. In certain sequences, you catch glimpses of
something profound, but you find that these are deceptive, like footprints
in wet sand that are seemingly a path until the tide comes in. The impression
is too shallow to wholly capture you. And, looking back on the journey, you
long for a song with a purpose, instead of a meandering and questioning thing
that seems not to know itself.
