Albert Franz Doppler (1821-1883) was born in the city of Lemberg, then part of the Austrian Habsburg Empire, today Lviv in Ukraine. He received music lessons from his father, who served as a music director in Lemberg and Warsaw. Doppler, who became a flute virtuoso, toured throughout Europe, along with his brother Karl, who was also a flute virtuoso. Subsequently, Doppler took composition lessons from Franz Liszt and became a fine composer. Most of his works were for flute in some form or another; however, he also wrote several successful operas and was widely considered a superb orchestrator. His orchestrations of Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsodies, published with Liszt's permission, are still used today. He settled in Budapest for a number of years, serving as principal flautist and then conductor of the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra. Subsequent to this, he moved to Vienna, where he became chief conductor of the Vienna Court Orchestra and a Professor of Flute at the Vienna Conservatory.
His Nocturne, Op.19, dates from 1867 and was dedicated to his friend Richard Lewy, a prominent Viennese horn player. It begins with a brief piano introduction before a lyrical subject is introduced by the cello (or horn. Eventually, the violin and then the flute join in. After a while, the cello/horn brings forth another long-lined melody. This is followed by a lively bird-like interlude from the flute, played high above the other voices. The work ends calmly with an aura of peacefulness.