Which Chopin nocturne to learn first

Start with the Nocturne in B major, Op. 32 No. 1. It is level 4 of 8 and 65 bars, the left hand stays inside simple broken chords in a small span, and the right hand learns Chopin’s rubato there. Bar 62 holds a German sixth, and the hands drop into a unison recitative in B minor. The edition shows the form and the opening chords free.

Why Op. 32 No. 1

In a nocturne the left hand decides how hard the piece is, and here it stays out of the way: broken chords in a small span, rated 4 on its own. That leaves the right hand, where the ornaments are the lesson. Chopin’s rubato is the melody bending around a left hand that keeps time, and this left hand can keep time from the first week.

Among the level-4 nocturnes, learn this one for bar 62. It holds a German sixth (G, B, D, E♯), then a unison recitative runs in B minor with no accompaniment at all, and the last chords are E minor and B minor. That E minor, borrowed from B minor, has already ended all four phrases of the theme, so the close in the minor sounds prepared.

Bars 1–4 swing between I and V, B and F♯⁷, and bars 41–61 repeat bars 20–40, so the new material is about 44 bars. Hold the progression in your head and restart from any bar by naming the chord you are on.

Op. 9 No. 2 waits on the left hand

Op. 9 No. 2 in E♭ major is the one everyone wants, and it is level 5. The theme comes back three more times over nearly the same chords, more ornamented each time, and the coda has a fast run. The left hand plays a bass note then two chords, with leaps of a tenth and more, and it has to stay quiet under the melody the whole way. Landing the leaps is one job and keeping them quiet is another, and doing both while the melody is still new is what makes this nocturne take so long.

Our edition takes the leaps out of the first pass. The right hand is exactly as Chopin wrote it, and the left hand is one root-position chord per harmony, so in the first session you play the whole melody over its own chords and hear the piece. The leaps come later, over chords your hands already know. I learned Op. 9 No. 2 this way. If it is the one you want, start with Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2.

Runners-up

Op. 72 No. 1 in E minor, level 4, keeps one broken-chord pattern in the left hand from first bar to last, so once it is in the hand it stays, and the single-line melody thickens toward the end.

Op. 15 No. 3 in G minor, level 4, has the quietest left hand of all the nocturnes, an accompaniment with no wide stretches under a single line marked languido, and its middle section is a slow chorale where both hands play chords. Each hand rates 3 on its own.

Two passes

Pass one is the melody over its harmony. The form is A (bars 1–12), A′ (13–19), B (20–30), C (31–36) and T (37–40), then B′, C′ and T′ repeat bars 20–40 as bars 41–61, and the coda is bars 62–65. Bars 1–4 swing between I and V, B and F♯⁷, so the first phrase is two chords. Bar 5 moves through B⁷ and A♯⁷ to D♯ minor, and bar 7 ends the phrase with E minor, the iv borrowed from B minor, then V⁷. Play Chopin’s right hand over one chord per harmony and say the numerals as you go. B rests on F♯, the dominant, with its own dominant C♯⁷ in bars 21–24, then passes through D♯ minor, A♯ minor and G♯ minor, each reached through its own dominant. C holds D♯ in the bass for four bars and never lands on G♯. T is four chords, G♯⁷, C♯⁷, F♯⁷, B, each the dominant of the next. Learn bars 1–40 and you have the piece to bar 61.

Pass two is Chopin’s own left hand, the broken chords, over the progression you already know, and it goes quickly because every chord already has a name. Leave the coda for last: the German sixth in bar 62, the unison recitative, then E minor and B minor. It is four bars, and the E minor of bar 7 is the chord that closes it.

All 21

The nocturnes ranked by difficulty rates each hand on its own. Op. 32 No. 1 is sixth, and Op. 9 No. 2 is seventh.