John Field's Nocturnes

[Mark]

I've never heard anything by Field, not even his famous Nocturnes (a form I believe is credited to him) which I've so often read inspired Chopin's. Supposing I was to get a set of Field's Nocturnes, to which performer should I turn?

Thanks in advance.

[orbital]

I have Benjamin Frith's Naxos account, with nothing to compare it with. I would think that they are well executed in general.

As for the music itself, the genre may be attributed to him, but I think there is not much in common with Chopin's ouvre except the form IMO. The only one that could very remotely be mistaken for an early Chopin piece may be the c minor nocturne.

[Mark]

I have Benjamin Frith's Naxos account, with nothing to compare it with. I would think that they are well executed in general.

As for the music itself, the genre may be attributed to him, but I think there is not much in common with Chopin's ouvre except the form IMO. The only one that could very remotely be mistaken for an early Chopin piece may be the c minor nocturne.

How do you rate these works, and do you think that someone like me who adores Chopin's Nocturnes would find much to love in Field's?

[SonicMan46]

Mark - I've had the Telarc disc below for many years - O'Connor is quite good in this repertoire and the sound recording is superb - CLICK on the image, if interested in snippets or some consistent 5* reviews from the Amazonians; however, there seems to be a number of other 'Nocturne' recordings w/ excellent comments.

Also own Field's Piano Concertos 1 & 2 on Chandos w/ Bamert & O'Rourke - also superb reviews - again CLICK on the image. 

In fact, in reviewing these offerings, so much more has been released since my last look at Field's CDs - hope others will make comments, too!   

 

[JoshLilly]

Field's music is much more melody-oriented than Chopin's, I think. As far as Nocturnes go, it seemed Chopin used it to be a quieter, introspective sort of single-movement piano work, whereas Field seemed to use it more as a name for any kind of short, free-form piano piece that tends not to be overly loud. And not always that short, either: #16 in C is around 12 minutes long! It's really a lovely fantasy rather than a Nocturne as we'd think in post-Chopin times.

There are some really beautiful melodies in these works. I agree that #2 in C minor is the most Chopinesque. Really, these two composers have little in common compositionally.

I'd suggest checking out Field's Piano Concerto #2 first among all his works to get familiar. That is my favourite of all the pieces of his that I've heard (and I have all his solo piano music and 7 piano concerti, so I really do like his music).

[orbital]

How do you rate these works, and do you think that someone like me who adores Chopin's Nocturnes would find much to love in Field's?

To tell you the truth, with only 21 (19 for some) of them in existence, I find Chopin's to be one of the best pieces of music I've heard. And I have (and still do) search for other music that can give me the same level of satisfaction to no avail

Field's nocturnes are serene night music, but without the expression,  complexity and perhaps more importantly for me, the agitation of Chopin. I'd say some are lovely while others do not provoke either a negative or a positive impression on me. Not that I have anything against the major scale   but all nocturnes leave 2 or 3  are in major keys and generally boast an air of light headed serenade music, though I am sure I am oversimplifying and unjustly comparing them to Chopin. But it is just impossible not to  

[Mark]

This is what I love about this place: so many informative and enthusiastic answers so quickly. Thank you all.

And Josh, thanks for the PM. I'll let you know.

[George]

 

This is the one that I have, Mark. I enjoy it and have not sought another performance.

[BorisG]

I've never heard anything by Field, not even his famous Nocturnes (a form I believe is credited to him) which I've so often read inspired Chopin's. Supposing I was to get a set of Field's Nocturnes, to which performer should I turn?

Thanks in advance.

If you want one recording for representation, the Nocturnes played by John O'Conor on Teldec would be it. Plodding through the rest of Field is a waste of time, in my opinion.

[Holden]

Ignore O'Conor and O'Rourke - two syrupy and slow for my taste. Benjamin Frith takes a far more educated and vibrant approach and the two discs are well worth acquiring. If you want one disc only then the recordings by Roberte Mamou (if you can find it) is excellent and I prefer them slightly over Frith. The best I've heard unfortunately hasn't made it to CD - 15 of the Nocturnes by Noel Lee which I've only ever heard in LP form.

[Mark]

Ignore O'Conor and O'Rourke - two syrupy and slow for my taste. Benjamin Frith takes a far more educated and vibrant approach and the two discs are well worth acquiring. If you want one disc only then the recordings by Roberte Mamou (if you can find it) is excellent and I prefer them slightly over Frith. The best I've heard unfortunately hasn't made it to CD - 15 of the Nocturnes by Noel Lee which I've only ever heard in LP form.

Thanks for this nod towards Frith. I can download all of the Nocturnes played by him as part of my monthly eMusic subscription, which might be the best place to start.

[Earthlight]

There's a recording by Bart van Oort on fortepiano that I enjoy quite a lot (or used to; haven't listened to it for a while, but that's time constraints, not loss of interest). I also like O'Conor with these; haven't heard Frith.

[m_gigena]

Ignore O'Conor and O'Rourke - two syrupy and slow for my taste. Benjamin Frith takes a far more educated and vibrant approach and the two discs are well worth acquiring. If you want one disc only then the recordings by Roberte Mamou (if you can find it) is excellent and I prefer them slightly over Frith. The best I've heard unfortunately hasn't made it to CD - 15 of the Nocturnes by Noel Lee which I've only ever heard in LP form.

I have O'Rourke Nocturnes from Chandos and don't really like them. But I'm not sure if the merit goes to the pianist, or to the composer.

I played an E flat major one last year (don't remember the number). It was nice... but silly.

[Holden]

I have O'Rourke Nocturnes from Chandos and don't really like them. But I'm not sure if the merit goes to the pianist, or to the composer.

I played an E flat major one last year (don't remember the number). It was nice... but silly.

As part of the third year of my music degree I chose a composer to study and Field was my choice. Research shows that Field (1782 - 1837) was a contemporary of many of the late classical composers including Beethoven and Schubert. Early influences included Haydn and Clementi.  He followed Clementi to Russia and spent most of the rest of his life based there while touring Europe to great acclaim. He actually heard the young Liszt play and at the end of a concert asked his neighbour "does he bite?".

When Field died Chopin was just 16 years old and hadn't been discovered yet and the romantic period had yet to really start.

So one should consider John Field as a composer in the classical period mold, not an arch romantic. This is why the ill informed performances of the likes of O'Conor and O'Rourke  just don't cut the mustard as far as I'm concerned. You can't play Field Nocturnes as if they were composed by Chopin. When you consider that the 17th of the Field nocturnes had been written in 1810 (Chopin's birth year) you can see how this approach just isn't right.

[JoshLilly]

When Field died, Chopin was 26 (Field died months before Chopin's 27th birthday). I think the 16 above was a typo!

The first of Field's nocturnes dates to 1812, and #17 to 1832, not 1810!

I think he's commonly termed a Romantic composer because of the pastoral emotion that infuses so many of his works. I don't think there's a single bar from his Le troubadour nocturne from 1836 or 1837 that would have been unusual 30 years or even 40 years earlier, but the emotional tone seems a bit different. That's why I think Field has a special sound, one very hard to explain for me since I lack technical knowledge of music. Harmonically, he usually sounded behind his time, but in terms of how he handled the melodic line, pacing and so on, he sounds more 1840s. His 1812 Nocturne in C minor actually fooled my Chopin-obsessed friend; he thought it was a later composer trying desperately to copy Chopin. It may be my favourite of his nocturnes.

An article by Charles Moss on Field, with some of his works at the bottom, many with years attached (my source for the nocturne dates above):
http://www.carolinaclassical.com/articles/field.html

[Josquin des Prez]

To tell you the truth, with only 21 (19 for some) of them in existence, I find Chopin's to be one of the best pieces of music I've heard. And I have (and still do) search for other music that can give me the same level of satisfaction to no avail

Chopin was one of those true rare geniuses and can be counted on the same order as the mature Bach, or late Beethoven, but his place is never acknowledged in that type of dimension. Be that as it may, he remains a great favored among all ranks of music lovers, which is good enough i think.

[cosmicj]

Old thread but I have that O'Conor disc.  I got it just out of curiosity and was really surprised by how pleasantly attractive the music is.  It's pretty, and I don't mean that in a pejorative way.  Agree with the comment about approaching Field not as a romantic but as a post-classical musician. 

[False_Dmitry]

So one should consider John Field as a composer in the classical period mold, not an arch romantic. This is why the ill informed performances of the likes of O'Conor and O'Rourke  just don't cut the mustard as far as I'm concerned. You can't play Field Nocturnes as if they were composed by Chopin. When you consider that the 17th of the Field nocturnes had been written in 1810 (Chopin's birth year) you can see how this approach just isn't right.

I have to part company with you in that assessment, I'm afraid.  "Romanticism" is a musical style, and not a kind of epidemic which broke-out in such-and-such a year.  As an aesthetic movement, "Romantic" poetry was being written in the 1790s, and Spohr famously referred to Beethoven as a "Romantic" composer.   If we can count a critical element of "Romanticism" as its involvement with revolution and the overthrow of the C18th social order, you can trace elements of it back into late Mozart works.   One particular moment I'd point to (while you are all expecting me to say "Figaro") is in THE ESCAPE FROM THE SERAGLIO - the Belmonte/Constanze duet in the dungeon as they await their execution the next morning is pure Romanticism.  And the whole genre of "Escape Operas" which flourished from the 1790s onwards are entirely "Romantic" in both form and content.

Field's Nocturnes are entirely about self-expression, freed from fealty to King, nobleman or churchman.  There's not a sign of a periwigged Minuet in any of his repertoire - he's created a whole new form, and cut loose from the ancien regime entirely.

[SonicMan46]

Well without getting into a frazzle over the definition of Romanticism, whether in music or literature; the early 1800s were just a wonderfully dynamic period of music w/ many composers looking back or ahead (or both!) - I'm glad to have many recordings from this era, and 'pigeon-holing' these composers is often futile - 

But since my previous post, I have acquired the 'Complete Nocturnes' w/ O'Rourke, and enjoy his performances without having to try to place the composer and the recordings into one category or another; after all, it's up to your own ears, and people after different aural diets - 

[San Antone]

Early Romanticism : the solo piano music of John Field and others

The characteristic texture is that of a chromatically decorated melody over sonorous left hand parts supported by sensitive pedaling. Field also had an affinity for ostinato patterns and pedal points, rather unusual for the prevailing styles of the day. Entirely representative of these traits are Field's eighteen nocturnes and associated pieces such as Andante inedit, H 64. These works were some of the most influential music of the early Romantic period: they do not adhere to a strict formal scheme (such as the sonata form), and they create a mood without text or program. These pieces were admired by Frédéric Chopin, who subsequently made the piano nocturne famous, and Franz Liszt, who published an edition of the nocturnes based on rare Russian sources that incorporated late revisions by Field.

Along with Field two other composers deserve to be mentioned, Jan Latislav Dussek and Václav Tomášek.

Dussek wrote numerous solo piano works, including 34 Piano Sonatas as well as a number of programmatic compositions. His The Sufferings of the Queen of France (composed in 1793, C 98), for example, is an episodic account of Marie Antoinette with interpolated texts relating to the Queen's misfortunes, including her sorrow at being separated from her children and her final moments on the scaffold before the guillotine.

Tomášek wrote a good deal for the piano and became a forerunner of the lyric piano piece which later reached its apogee in the works of Schubert and Chopin. At first he remained loyal to the Classical style, but later was influenced by the newly born Romanticism.  He created a form which he called ecologues, which were almost stream of consciousness piano solos.  He also wrote rhapsodies and dithyrambs.

https://www.youtube.com/v/2bx66RJ1m94&list=PL9D2736529BA73225&index=2