It was through the Nocturnes that pianist Jan Lisiecki first discovered the music of Chopin – he recalls falling in love with Op. 9, No. 1 as a child and being enchanted by its yearning melody. The piece, the first of 21 Nocturnes the composer wrote between the late 1820s and 1847, offered a glimpse of a vast universe of emotions, expressions, musical gestures, and tonal colors. Lisiecki performs the complete Nocturnes on a new recording made in October 2020 at Berlin’s historic Meistersaal. The album not only captures the spirit of Chopin’s pianism, but also represents the time and circumstances in which it was made, as Lisiecki himself explains: “I think there was something for me to say with this album. It reflects on the last year and my thoughts on that as well as on the escape and understanding that music gives us.”
