The piece
Chopin composed the Fantaisie-Impromptu in 1834 and never published it: Julian Fontana brought it out in 1855, six years after his death, as Op. 66. Between two fast sections in C-sharp minor, the middle, Moderato cantabile, sings in D-flat major; it is the tune everyone hums. This easy version, arranged for Noctave after the Peters edition (Herrmann Scholtz), keeps the whole Moderato, a semitone lower: in C major, with no sharps or flats in the key signature.
In Chopin's score the left hand plays six notes per half bar against the melody; here it plays four eighth notes in a single hand position, the bass and then the chord, joined by the pedal. Play them very softly, like a carpet under the song. The right hand must sing: join each note to the next and let the half notes last. The small dotted rhythms (dotted eighth, sixteenth) stay supple, never jerky. In bars 3, 11 and 23, the left hand plays chords whose top note steps down, F, E, D, C, answering the tune.
