The Berceuse, op. 57, published June, 1845, and dedicated to Mlle. Elise Gavard, is the very sophistication of the art of musical ornamentation.  It is built on a tonic and dominant bass—­ the triad of the tonic and the chord of the dominant seventh.  A rocking theme is set over this basso ostinato and the most enchanting effects are produced.  The rhythm never alters in the bass, and against this background, the monotone of a dark, gray sky, the composer arranges an astonishing variety of fireworks, some florid, some subdued, but all delicate in tracery and design.  Modulations from pigeon egg blue to Nile green, most misty and subtle modulations, dissolve before one’s eyes, and for a moment the sky is peppered with tiny stars in doubles, each independently tinted.  Within a small segment of the chromatic bow Chopin has imprisoned new, strangely dissonant colors.  It is a miracle; and after the drawn-out chord of the dominant seventh and the rain of silvery fire ceases one realizes that the whole piece is a delicious illusion, but an ululation in the key of D flat, the apotheosis of pyrotechnical colorature.

Niecks quotes Alexandre Dumas fils, who calls the Berceuse “muted music,” but introduces a Turkish bath comparison, which crushes the sentiment.  Mertke shows the original and Klindworth’s reading of a certain part of the Berceuse, adding a footnote to the examples: 

[Two musical score excerpts from Op. 57, one from the original version, one from Klindworth’s edition]

[Footnote:  Das tr (flat) der Originale (Scholtz tr natural-flat) zeigt, dass Ch. den Triller mit Ganzton und nach Mikuli den Trilleranfang mit Hauptton wollte.] The Barcarolle, op. 60, published September, 1846, is another highly elaborated work.  Niecks must be quoted here:  “One day Tausig, the great piano virtuoso, promised W. de Lenz to play him Chopin’s Barcarolle, adding, ’That is a performance which must not be undertaken before more than two persons.  I shall play you my own self.  I love the piece, but take it rarely.’  Lenz got the music, but it did not please him—­it seemed to him a long movement in the nocturne style, a Babel of figuration on a lightly laid foundation.  But he found that he had made a mistake, and, after hearing it played by Tausig, confessed that the virtuoso had infused into the ’nine pages of enervating music, of one and the same long-breathed rhythm, so much interest, so much motion, so much action,’ that he regretted the long piece was not longer.”

Tausig’s conception of the barcarolle was this:  “There are two persons concerned in the affair; it is a love scene in a discrete gondola; let us say this mise-en-scene is the symbol of a lover’s meeting generally.”

“This is expressed in thirds and sixths; the dualism of two notes—­persons—­is maintained throughout; all is two-voiced, two-souled.  In this modulation in C sharp major—­superscribed dolce sfogato—­there are kiss and embrace!  This is evident!  When, after three bars of introduction, the theme, ’lightly rocking in the bass solo,’ enters in the fourth, this theme is nevertheless made use of throughout the whole fabric only as an accompaniment, and on this the cantilena in two parts is laid; we have thus a continuous, tender dialogue.”