Grieg wrote his famous Nocturne in the summer of 1891 during his annual country retreat to the Norwegian mountains and fjords. Its popularity is due to its pleasantly melodic form, but it also gives the piano student a number of techniques to practice including hand-crossing, multiple voices in one hand, the cross rhythms of triplets against doublets, the impression of bird-calls ending with trills, and a fast middle section which is not too technically demanding.