Noctave
The piece
Chopin wrote this march in 1837, two years before the other three movements of his Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor, which was published in 1840 in Leipzig, Paris and London. It was played, in an orchestral version, at his own funeral in 1849. The form is simple: the march in B-flat minor, a trio in D-flat major with its two repeats, then the march again. The first Leipzig edition, followed here, prints no tempo marking at all.
Everything rests on the left hand: two four-note chords alternating across two octaves for the whole march. Keep them perfectly even and very soft, your hand close to the keys, so the dotted rhythm of the right hand stands out above them. The trills and grace notes come before the beat without delaying it. In the trio, the right hand sings a long melody over wide left-hand arpeggios: let the pedal join the basses and shape the end of each phrase. The slow pace is deceptive, since you have to sustain eight minutes without hurrying.