John Field (July 26, 1782 - January 23, 1837) was an Irish composer and pianist. He is best known for being the first composer to write nocturnes.

Born in Dublin, Field first studied the piano under his father, who was a violinist, and later under Tommaso Giordani. He later went went to London where he studied under Muzio Clementi. He toured Europe both to demonstrate the pianos that Clementi made and as a concert pianist before settling in St Petersburg in Russia where he was a popular performer and teacher. He died in Moscow.

Field is best remembered as the first composer to write nocturnes, single movement pieces for piano which were not in a fixed form (as the minuet or fugue are) and which maintained a single mood throughout. These pieces greatly influenced Frederic Chopin, who went on to write 21 nocturnes himself. Inasmuch as Field's nocturnes were the first single-movement piano character pieces, they can be seen as important forerunners of many other Romantic composers' works, among them Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann, Franz Liszt and Edvard Grieg.

Field also wrote seven piano concertos of which the best known is probably the second (1811) (although some feel the fourth (1819) is a better piece).

Recordings

John O'Conor recorded a fine set of Nocturnes in 1989 (on Telarc 80199). He plays a Hamburg Steinway, and although this disc features only the first fifteen Nocturnes, it makes an excellent starting point. The recording is warm and resonant and this is ideal for the music. O'Conor's recording of the sonatas and remaining Nocturnes on Telarc 80290 is also very good.

Miceal O'Rourke has recorded all of the Nocturnes, Sonatas, and Concertos for Chandos. His survey of Field's music is the most extensive, running to eight discs. The concertos, with the London Mozart Players conducted by Matthias Bamert, are on 9368, 9442, 9495, and 9534. The Sonatas are on 8787; the Nocturnes on 8719/20. O'Rourke has also made a disc of Field's other short piano works, many of which are otherwise unavailable (on Chandos 9315). The fourth disc of concertos also features chamber music including a Quintetto for piano and string quartet, and two Divertissements for piano and strings, in premiere recordings.

Andreas Staier has recorded two of the Field Concertos (nos. 2 and 3) on an 1802 Broadwood fortepiano, with Concerto Koln on Teldec 21475. In addition to giving us the sound that the composer would have heard (these works were published in 1816), Staier includes one of the Nocturnes as the middle movement of a concerto. It is likely that Field did the same.

External link