Chopin took the nocturne to unprecedented artistic spectrum, with his seemingly effortless florid bel canto signature melodies carefully knitted into contrapunctual texture, the nocturnes became gold in piano music genre and an emblem of individualism.
Tchaikovsky admitted that his music had been influenced by Chopin “in spite of myself.” Thus the Russians took the torch: Balakirev, Arensky, Rachmaninoff and Scriabin, and the nocturnes speak more than just lost of love but soul-searching.