How to Use nocturne in a Sentence

nocturne

noun
  • As Cai grew old in the 1980s, his son, Cai Wanghuai, played the nocturne to comfort him.
    The Economist, 18 Dec. 2019
  • That tells us it’s not exactly a nocturne and certainly not a day scene.
    Brian T. Allen, National Review, 7 Dec. 2019
  • Four arrangements of the fanfare are included on the album: the theme, prelude, nocturne and the full fanfare.
    Milwaukee, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 23 Jan. 2018
  • Everybody else was doing nocturnes and things like that.
    John Orr, The Mercury News, 29 May 2017
  • Douglas Brenner: Your flow of rich, moody colors from room to room reminds me of the paintings Whistler called nocturnes, or harmonies.
    Douglas Brenner, House Beautiful, 2 Nov. 2012
  • Sitting at his Petrof piano in his penthouse, Martins reels off Frédéric Chopin’s nocturnes with aplomb.
    Washington Post, 23 Jan. 2020
  • Pace and space We are always told that baseball is the shut-in's friend, the faithful companion of the elderly, the summer nocturne of our golden years.
    Bill Livingston, cleveland.com, 22 June 2017
  • Varone makes a rare appearance to perform a retrospective of his career in two solos set to Chopin nocturnes.
    Lauren Warnecke, chicagotribune.com, 30 Jan. 2018
  • Wright's early portraits on one wall bear little resemblance to the dark blue nocturnes on another wall.
    Susan Dunne, courant.com, 25 Sep. 2017
  • The nocturne, marked Lento con gran espressione, begins with a brief, repeated introduction.
    Madeleine Kearns, National Review, 14 Mar. 2020
  • This made the opening nocturne feel more contained, less disquieting, than when a soloist and conductor dig deeper into its brooding depths.
    John Von Rhein, chicagotribune.com, 9 Mar. 2018
  • The back-to-back solos, each set to a Chopin nocturne and choreographed 30 years apart, serve as the choreographer’s memoir, a gaze at his whole career and signature movement aesthetic in less than 10 minutes.
    Lauren Warnecke, chicagotribune.com, 9 Feb. 2018
  • Mr. Pollini opened each half of his Chopin program with a pair of nocturnes, in minor and major keys; the F minor, after intermission, was especially fine.
    James R. Oestreich, New York Times, 23 May 2017
  • Moran's pianism — by turns as melodic as a nocturne by Chopin and as explosive as a solo by Cecil Taylor — proved consistently gripping.
    Howard Reich, chicagotribune.com, 3 June 2017
  • After this, Connie Hegarty, piano, explores the development of the nocturne in her performance.
    courant.com, 2 Dec. 2019
  • Roberts made a jazz nocturne of the slow middle movement, his complex chords and original themes catapulting a Roaring ’20s work directly into the 21st century.
    Howard Reich, chicagotribune.com, 6 Dec. 2019
  • The second of two great septuagenarian pianists passing through New York this week brings with him an all-Chopin program, featuring two sets of nocturnes, a couple of ballades, a scherzo, a berceuse and the third of the composer’s sonatas.
    David Allen, New York Times, 18 May 2017
  • Across the gallery from those nocturnes are impressionist en plein air landscapes, wildly colored like the fauvists, dominated by cotton-candy pink and canary yellow.
    Susan Dunne, courant.com, 25 Sep. 2017

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'nocturne.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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