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Pianist Pablo Cintron performs The Nocturne in C minor, Op. 48, No. 1 is initially marked lento and is in 4/4 meter. The piece becomes poco più lento at measure 25 and enters its middle section, which is a chorale. Later, it moves to doppio movimento agitato at measure 49.[4] The piece is a total of 77 measures long. In general, the scheme of the music is ternary form and follows A-B-A'.[5]

The Nocturne in C minor has been categorized as one of Chopin's greatest emotional achievements.[6][7] Theodor Kullak said of the piece, "the design and poetic contents of this nocturne make it the most important one that Chopin created; the chief subject is a masterly expression of a great powerful grief."[7] Jan Kleczyński, Sr. calls the nocturne "broad and most imposing with its powerful intermediate movement, a thorough departure from the nocturne style."[8] Some musical critics, including Charles Willeby and Frederick Niecks, do not think the piece deserves its fame and position; though James Huneker agrees with this assessment, he notes that the nocturne is still "the noblest nocturne of them all."[9] James Friskin found the music to have "the most imposing instrumental effect of any of the nocturnes," calling the crescendo and octaves "almost Lisztian."[10]

Jim Samson notes that the nocturne intensifies "not through ornamentation, but through a new textural background."[11] Kleczyński commented that the middle section "is the tale of a still greater grief told in an agitated recitando; celestial harps come to bring one ray of hope, which is powerless in its endeavor to calm the wounded soul, which...sends forth to heaven a cry of deepest anguish." The ending, according to Samson, is "in the nature of an elaborated 'feminine ending', articulating the reactive final beat of an amphibrach grouping."