Berceuse in D flat major, Op.57

The Berceuse is one of the miracles of Chopin’s late years. All it is, basically, is a four-bar melody and a one-bar accompaniment figure. The left-hand repeats the accompaniment of alternating tonic and dominant harmonies more than thirty times until - while the rocking cradle-song rhythm remains always the same - the tonality briefly veers towards the subdominant on the last page. The magical quality is in the variety of decorative inspirations applied to the melodic line in the right hand, which scarcely seems to be aware of what the left hand is doing, its chromatic colouring clashing most exquisitely with the explicit D flat major harmonies in the bass. Conceived in 1843 as (according to the sketch) “Variantes,” the Berceuse was completed in 1844 when the two bars of left-hand introduction were, apparently, added as an afterthought.