Nocturnal No. 6 is a work in three parts which delineate the following plan: a dramatization of a single monodic line by means of continual variation and troping. The melodic material is derived from isolated elements that are found in Ukrainian folklore and were tied in my mind very closely to visual patterns and colors. Some of the principal melodic material comes from an old work for piano "Kaleidoscope" which I discarded (although some of the material of that suite found its way into Nocturnal Nos. 1 and 2). Here, as in middle part of Nocturnal No. 4, the single line unfolds through different sections (or verses ), each with its own climax and repose, each an attempt to find the correct inward sensibility, and each followed by its own resonance into silence. The first two sections (verse 1 and verse 2) last about eight and a half minutes and are dominated by a single theme that is not heard in a complete, unadorned way until the end of section two. The third section, the envoy, is a sort of highly melismatic "adieux" and a memory from childhood that comes to one just before sleep descends. In 1990, Nocturnal No. 6 became the basis of the second movement of Piano Concerto No. 1.
Nocturnal No. 6 was premiered by Elissa Stutz, for whom it was written, at the Third International Music Festival of the USSR in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), Russia, on May 27, 1988.