Chopin’s Nocturnes for piano are among his most popular pieces, and the English pianist Stephen Hough views them as some of the finest operatic arias ever written. The vocal influence on Chopin’s music is strongly evident in Hough’s playing of the opening Nocturne in B flat minor, where the alluring right-hand melody is spun with all the delicacy of an operatic soprano. In the F major Nocturne (Op. 15 No. 1) Hough shows that for all their tendency to ethereality, drama stalks the Nocturnes too in their often disquieting central sections. These competing elements are exquisitely balanced out by Hough in the two Op. 62 Nocturnes, where the subtle transitions from one emotion to another are seamlessly presented. These are ravishing, deeply felt interpretations, among the finest ever of these timeless pieces.