Nocturne in C sharp minor (Lento con gran espressione) Op.posth

Chopin’s Lento con gran espressione is included among his nocturnes not because of any indication in Chopin’s hand - the autograph bears no title apart from the tempo heading - but because it has proved to be a useful way of identifying it. In its outer sections it does, indeed, have something in commonn with the first set of Nocturnes Op.9 but there is no parallel to its middle section in anything else Chopin wrote at any time or in any form: it is an amusing and quite unique exercise in self-quotation, making disguised allusions to the Piano Concerto in F minor (most clearly just before the reprise of the opening section) and the early song Zyczenie (The Wish). It is parly on the evidence of these allusions that the piece is thought to have been written in Vienna in 1830.