Chopin: 5 Calm Pieces 🎹 Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2, L'Adieu Waltz, Raindrop Prelude | Tranquil Streams

Five of Chopin's calmest pieces, played end to end. About twenty-two minutes, no talking, no gaps.

0:00 Nocturne in E-flat major, Op. 9 No. 2
4:19 Waltz in A-flat major, Op. 69 No. 1, "L'Adieu"
8:59 Nocturne in C-sharp minor, B. 49
13:25 Prelude in D-flat major, Op. 28 No. 15, "Raindrop"
19:42 Prelude in E minor, Op. 28 No. 4

Most of these were written on the way out of somewhere, or a long way from home.

The Nocturne in E-flat major comes from 1830 to 1832, the years he left Poland for Paris. It was published in 1832 in a set of three dedicated to Marie Pleyel, one of the finest pianists in Europe at the time. It has since become the piece most people mean when they say Chopin.

The Waltz in A-flat major is a farewell in the plainest sense. He wrote it in 1835 and gave it to Maria Wodzinska in Dresden two days before he left. It stayed unpublished until 1855, six years after he died, when his friend Julian Fontana brought it out. The nickname L'Adieu comes from what it was for.

The Nocturne in C-sharp minor is from 1830, around the time he left Poland for good. He sent it to his older sister Ludwika to practise before she took on his Second Concerto. It waited until 1875 to be published.

The Raindrop Prelude was written on Mallorca in the winter of 1838, at a monastery in Valldemossa, on a trip that was supposed to be good for his health and was not. The repeated A-flat running under the whole piece is where the name came from. It was not his name for it, and he disliked hearing his music described as an imitation of anything.

The Prelude in E minor closes the set. It was played on the organ at his funeral at the Madeleine in Paris on 30 October 1849.