That was fine until we left it running longer than usual and learned what Nocturne No. When my son was four, he listened to a CD of Chopin nocturnes to go to sleep. The nocturne is meant to evoke the calm of night, and Chopin’s Nocturne in B-Flat Minor is no exception. Chopin is warm and dark and safe and sad to me, but it’s also the physical vibrations of that piano against my back.Īll that to say: I don’t approach Chopin objectively. I would sometimes lie beneath the keyboard by the pedals with my back against the piano as he played nocturnes, picturing that tortured, tubercular Delacroix painting ^ on the cover of Ron’s music.

He played other things, but those are the ones I can still hear - and it’s Chopin that makes me feel five years old again. The soundtrack of my childhood came through my brother’s piano in three threads: West Side Story, Scott Joplin, and Chopin.

(First in the Laney’s List series - a music professor chooses 36 pieces to introduce his 16-year-old daughter to classical music.)

B flat minor