Chopin, Nocturne Op 9 No 3

 
The remarkable French pianist Marie-Felicité-Denise Pleyel, née Moke, and the pianist and piano maker Camille Pleyel, admirer and friend of Chopin, united their lives in 1831 shortly after Marie-Felicité-Denise broke up with her fiancé, the musician Hector Berlioz, whom she notified of her decision in a letter to Rome, where the musician was enjoying a scholarship. For a few days, Berlioz ruminated on an act of real revenge that included the execution of the pianist and then his suicide, although on the way to Paris he came to his senses, for Marie-Felicité-Denise's fortune and his own.

"La Camilla"
But the one who, to Berlioz's detriment, had won the favors of "la Camilla" – as Liszt and his friends called her, in Spanish – did not fare any better either. Only five years after swearing mutual fidelity and care in sickness and in health, they divorced after Camille Pleyel managed to prove to the authorities the multiple and repeated infidelities of Marie-Felicité-Denise, 23 years his junior. The case and other related matters were enough to perpetuate, among Pleyel's male colleagues, the image of the remarkable artist as a femme fatale.

Camille Pleyel (1788 - 1855)

Camilla's friends
Indeed, the friends of "la Camilla" were not few. Liszt in the foreground and documented lover. On a less affective level, Mendelssohn and Schumann, the writers Alexander Dumas and Gerard de Nerval, and the painter Eugene Délacroix were among her most famous admirers, whom, it seems, she did not shun while she was Madame Pleyel.

A triumphant career

The announced divorce, far from negatively affecting the already famous artist, was the starting point of an even more successful professional career. From 1836 to 1846 she made triumphant tours of France, Germany, Austria, Russia, and England, surprising the audiences with her virtuosity, which was exceptional for the time for a female pianist. Liszt, as a colleague, pointed her out as "not only a great pianist but one of the great artists of the world".

Marie Pleyel (1811 - 1875)

Madame Pleyel, dedicatée

Frédéric Chopin, to whom Camille Pleyel supplied pianos, could not stay behind in the recognition. The three nocturnes of Opus 9, published in Paris in 1832, are dedicated to her, "to Madame Pleyel", for that year she still was, properly.

Nocturne Op. 9 No. 3, in B major

According to connoisseurs, although less popular than its opus partners it is the most accomplished of the three. Anticipating the more mature nocturnes, this is the one that most clearly delineates the A-B-A pattern established by John Field, the inventor of the form.

A graceful if somewhat obscure melody opens the first section which, despite its simplicity, presents a challenge to the performer, who must stretch his or her ability to produce a delicate sound. The middle section (3:52) is more agitated, almost martial. An abrupt harmonic change at 5:12 allows the first section to be resumed.

The rendition is by Ukrainian pianist Anna Fedorova, born in Kyiv in 1990.