Piano Sonata in E-flat major, Op. 1 No. 1

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Musical Terms (3)

• Field's career in Russia English
  John Field spent the greater part of his adult life in Russia — first in St. Petersburg from 1803, and later in Moscow — working as a concert pianist and teacher. His move to Russia came about through Clementi's commercial tour, from which Field was effectively left behind as a demonstration model for Clementi's pianos, a role he initially resented but which established his Russian career. In Russia, Field became one of the most celebrated musicians of his era, lionised by aristocratic society, celebrated as a teacher, and performing regularly at the Philharmonic Society. His pupils in Russia included Adolf Henselt, whose own piano writing bears a direct Field influence. Field's health deteriorated from the 1820s — exacerbated by heavy drinking — and his last years were marked by illness and a final European tour. He died in Moscow in 1837.
  Understanding Field's Russian context is important for interpreting his music: it was composed for private salons and aristocratic concert rooms rather than large public concert halls, and should be played with that intimacy in mind. The late nocturnes in particular are pieces for private contemplation, not public display. The concertos, though more public in their occasion, still reflect the intimate Russian salon culture in their light orchestration and preference for delicacy over grandeur.
• Field's influence on Chopin English
  John Field's piano nocturnes were the direct model for Chopin's own twenty-one nocturnes — the most celebrated and frequently performed works in the nocturne repertoire. Chopin encountered Field's nocturnes in Warsaw during his studies and reportedly acknowledged the debt when meeting Field briefly in Paris. The structural template — lyrical melody over broken-chord accompaniment — was taken directly from Field, but Chopin transformed it through incomparably greater harmonic sophistication, emotional range, and pianistic resource. Field is sometimes treated as a mere precursor to Chopin, but this underestimates him: the best of Field's nocturnes — the No. 1 in E♭, the No. 2 in C minor, the No. 10 in E minor — are complete artistic statements of real beauty, not merely historical exercises. Their neglect in the repertoire reflects the shadow cast by Chopin's achievement rather than any deficiency in the works themselves.
  To appreciate Field on his own terms, it helps to hear his nocturnes before the Chopin versions. The simplicity that seems like a precursor's limitation sounds quite different when the Chopin isn't ringing in your ears: it is a directness and economy that has its own power. The performer should resist the temptation to play Field as an earlier, simpler Chopin. Field's nocturnes have their own character — more restrained, more Classical in phrase structure, less harmonically adventurous — and they reward a playing style that honours this character rather than trying to infuse them with Romantic intensity they were not designed to carry.
• The invention of the nocturne English
  John Field (1782–1837) invented the piano nocturne as a genre, composing the first examples in the years around 1810 and establishing the template that Chopin would later transform into the defining Romantic piano form. Field's nocturnes established the essential characteristics: a singing right-hand melody in a long, ornamented line, typically in the upper register of the keyboard; a left-hand broken-chord accompaniment that provides both harmonic support and rhythmic continuity; a slow or moderate tempo; and a mood of quiet introspection or gentle melancholy. Field gave the form its name, derived from the Italianate 'notturnos' of Haydn and other 18th-century composers, but his piano nocturnes were an essentially new invention: instrumental, lyrical, and contemplative rather than orchestral or theatrical. Chopin studied Field's nocturnes carefully, acknowledged the debt explicitly, and developed the form with incomparably greater harmonic sophistication and emotional range. Through Chopin, Field's invention shaped the entire Romantic piano aesthetic.
  Field's nocturnes should be played with a priority on the singing quality of the right-hand melody: this is vocal music transcribed for the piano, and the performer should think always of a soprano voice or a cello sustained through the phrases. The left-hand accompaniment must be subordinate — present but never intrusive. Pedal should be used generously to sustain the bass, but avoid blurring the harmonic changes. The ornaments — turns, grace notes, trills — are not decorative additions but integral to the melodic line, and should be played with flexibility and naturalness rather than mechanical precision. Field's tempo markings should be followed with the freedom of a singer, not the regularity of a metronome.