Eli5 How did classical music composers memorize their songs back then after creating them?

Question

Let’s take for example the nocturnes of Chopin.

My preferred one is nocturne n. 20

He certainly didn’t have studio machine to record their sound AFAIK

How then did he memorize and write down everything to remember later?

Did he start playing the piano, write down the notes, continue playing or did he memorize the whole song by heart without any writing process?

Sorry 4 my bad English btw. Not a English native speaker.

EDIT : thanks everyone for the explanation.

In: 157

Answer 1

Many of my friends are songwriters. Most are musically literate, and write at intervals as they play. I see a lot of editing, too. Some record as they do this, but not all, and it seems age related.
If they grew up writing notation, they tend to note in short bursts, usually while humming.