Chopin - Nocturne Op. 37, No. 2 in G major
The Nocturne in G major is initially marked as andantino and is in 6/8 meter, remaining so for all 139 measures. It is written in the style of a Venetian barcarolle, which, according to Dubal, is engendered by the main theme's "euphonious thirds and sixths". Huneker commented that "pianists usually take the first part too fast, the second too slowly" and play the piece like an étude. Friskin commented that the sixths "require care to get evenness of tone control." The piece has the structure A-B-A-B-A, somewhat unusual for a Chopin nocturne. The melody in thirds and sixths is similarly unusual, all other Chopin nocturnes opening with single-voice melodies.
The nocturne has been acclaimed as one of the most beautiful melodies that Chopin has ever composed. Both Karasowski and Huneker agreed with this assessment; Karasowski claimed that "one can never listen [to the nocturne] without a sense of the deepest emotion and happiness," and Huneker commented that the nocturne was "painted with Chopin's most ethereal brush". Frederick Niecks also thought the piece had "a beautiful sensuousness; it is luscious, soft, rounded, and not without a certain degree of languor." To Blair Johnson, the theme is "certainly a musical embodiment of the 'less is more' doctrine." Johnson also commented that "something of the warmer Mediterranean climate crept into the composer's pen," in reference to Chopin's stay on the island of Majorca. Niecks also said that the nocturne "bewitches and unmans," pointing to the formerly popular view that Chopin's music could act as an aphrodisiac. Similarly, Louis Kentner once said, in reference to this nocturne, that the nocturnes should not "suffer critical degradation because sentimental young ladies used them, in days long gone by, to comfort their repressed libido."
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