Noctave
The piece
Andante cantabile, semplice e tranquillo: the heading sets the tone of this page, the first of Op. 15, with a melody shadowed by an inner voice, over an accompaniment in steady eighth notes and a held bass. Then, without transition, comes a central section in F minor marked con fuoco, with a completely different character: restless double notes in the right hand above a bass that rumbles in sixteenth notes. The calm of the opening then returns, sotto voce.
In the con fuoco section, the right hand reaches seven attacks per second, with peaks above nine, in repeated double notes: let them come from a small rotation of the forearm rather than from the fingers alone. Overall, nearly a third of the notes carry an accidental, so read these chromatic pages slowly. In the quiet sections, the difficulty is the opposite: keeping melody, inner voice and bass at different dynamic levels. Play each voice alone first, then in pairs, to hear what should dominate.