It is dedicated to the composer's friend August Iwański, at whose estate Ryżawka, and Józef Jaroszyński's manor in Zarudzie, the work was written.
The Nocturne is in the key of B minor, having mainly long elegant lines soaring high above the piano accompaniment,[2] but also sometimes diverts off the pathway into a Spanish idiom (Szymanowski had recently returned from a Mediterranean journey), and is alternately languid and febrile.
[3] The Tarantella is conversely in E minor, written a typically relentless Neapolitan 6/8 rhythm, with left-hand pizzicatos, double stopping and other effects.
[3] It has impressionistic overtones redolent of Debussy and early Stravinsky, but is also pervaded with the flavors of the Middle East, similarly to many of his works.
[7] Nocturne and Tarantella has been recorded numerous times, first by Yehudi Menuhin and Marcel Gazelle in 1937, and subsequently by artists such as Ida Haendel and Adela Kotowska; Wanda Wiłkomirska and Tadeusz Chmielewski; Kaja Danczowska [de] and Krystian Zimerman; Peter Pławner [pl] and Waldemar Malicki [pl];[6] Kyung-wha Chung, Ulf Hoelscher, Alina Ibragimova, Konstanty Andrzej Kulka, Johanna Martzy, Nathan Milstein and Aaron Rosand are other violinists who have recorded Nocturne and Tarantella.