Nocturne in E minor, Op. posth. 72, No. 1, was composed by
Frédéric Chopin for solo piano in 1827. Chopin's first
nocturne, it was the 19th to be published, in 1855. The composition features an unbroken line of quaver triplets in the left hand set against a slow melody of minims, crotchets, quaver duplets and triplets. It consists of 57 bars of common time with the tempo given as Andante, 69 bpm.
According to Casimir Wierzyknski, in his book The Life and Death of Chopin, "[U]p until then this form [the nocturne] had been the exclusive domain of John Field, an Irish-born composer. But his Nocturne in E minor did not satisfy him [Chopin] and was published only posthumously."
This piece was played by the actor Jeri Ryan while portraying Seven of Nine at the beginning of the Star Trek Voyager episode "Human Error". The piece was also performed by Doc Holiday in the 1993 movie Tombstone and was used as the main theme in The Secret Garden (1987).
