Nocturnes by Susan Tomes review: 'ingenious and astute'

In dealing with a book such as this, the first question that arises is “what is a nocturne?” or “how does the author define a nocturne?” Susan Tomes, a classical pianist, has a subtitle – “the fascination of night music” – but almost immediately unpicks the breadth of that. She cites two works beloved by any classical music lover – Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (A Little Night Music), depicting “effervescent” night-time dancing, and Bach’s Goldberg Variations, written to quell the insomnia of Count Kaiserling. But she begins, ingeniously, with Max Richter’s eight hour Sleep. It is a work I have listened to several times – although have I? Given one is encouraged to drop off in it, there might well be hours of it I have only ever heard subconsciously.

Another approach is to concentrate on works that describe themselves as nocturnes. This provides the spine of Tomes’s book, with the three guiding figures being the Irish-born John Field (1782-1837), the Polish Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849) and Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924). The first two had continent-spanning careers and a degree of celebrity hitherto rare in musical circles. Field, who “invented” the nocturne, wrote 18 which were named as such, and another three of his works might be considered “nocturne adjacent”. Chopin also published 18 in his lifetime, with three added to most posthumous collections, although confusingly no. 21 in C minor was never actually referred to as a nocturne until later. Fauré was more stay-at-home and inclined both academically and religiously. He wrote 13 nocturnes. To my ear, among his other works, the Cantique de Jean Racine and the Pavane both have a quality not dissimilar to the nocturnes.

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There is a wider and I think a very important point here regarding definition and taxonomy in the arts. I consider it a point of morality rather than aesthetics to argue against discrete, totalising and inflexible categories. Whatever your definition, I go out of my way to find the exceptions, the qualifications, the loopholes and the anomalies, and I guarantee to you they will always exist. Please remember that the next time the cultural debate swings towards the definition of – oh, let’s say, nationality.

Tomes seems to acknowledge this. Alkan’s Op. 57 nos 1 and 2 nocturnes are “hardly nocturne-like in character and seem rather inward and awkward in their language”. Leopoldine Blahetka calls one piece a nocturne which is “puzzling, as these pieces are cast in the heroic mould. The first Nocturne looks more like a polonaise”. Works by Craig Armstrong and Rose McLachlan are referred to as “what you might call ‘nocturne projects’”. Later on Tomes writes “Perhaps the most beautiful orchestral nocturnes are Debussy’s, but they are not nocturnes of the traditional type”. But as I say: I am perfectly content with a certain stretchiness in such matters. As MacNeice wrote, “World is crazier and more of it than we think / Incorrigibly plural”.

Tomes does highlight some factors that are worth bearing uppermost in mind, if not meaning they are sine qua non. The works under discussion tend to be for solo piano. There is frequently a “rippling” quality to the left hand part. Structure is usually ABA. They generally tend to be much, much shorter than Richter’s Sleep (Eight minutes max?) More importantly than the matters of technique and construction is that of effect. At one point she refers to “the prefiguring of a dream”, which is a very astute phrase indeed. Writing about the idea that “a solo pianist, therefore, has great authority”, Tomes continues that “he or she has the power, or is perceived to have the power, to usher us across a threshold to another state of mind. And nocturnes are certainly a kind of threshold music – a bridge between day and night, activity and rest, light and shade”. In a way all music is, to use that hackneyed word, “a journey”, but what I think Tomes is onto here is that the nocturne is orientated towards silence, to the non-musical.

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Tomes describes the works of many of the composers here with deft strokes. Although there is an understandable prominence given to Satie, Chaminade, Poulenc, Messiaen and the generally Gallic contingent, she is alert to include the less well-known female composers – Constanze Geiger, Gabriela Frank – and musicians from outwith Europe – Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji, Nabil Benabdeljalil. One advantage this kind of book now has is that I can read it with YouTube or Spotify on in the background, so there can be no accusation of the esoteric. Some parts, such on the use of the pedals, might be a little opaque if you have absolutely no knowledge of the piano, but there’s no harm in skipping them. One thing did surprise me: there are no Oriental composers. I would have thought that the culture of “the floating world” would be ideally placed to compose its own nocturnes. It didn’t surprise me, having chaired her at book festivals in the past, that Tomes struggles to enthuse about the likes of Einaudi (I concur) and Glass (I respectfully disagree). So l learned a lot, and listened to new things and went back to old things. What more might a music book do?

Nocturnes, by Susan Tomes, Yale University Press, £20

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