Field Nocturnes (míċeál O'rourke)

A wonderful idea brilliantly executed, Bart van Oort's four-disc set entitled The Art of the Nocturne is not only an in-depth examination of one of the most romantic of romantic musical forms, but also a really sexy set of seduction discs that cannot fail to warm even the coldest heart. The first disc in Oort's survey includes all the elegantly expressive Nocturnes of Irish-Russian composer John Field, the second and third discs include all the supremely sensual Nocturnes of Polish-French composer Frédéric Chopin, and the fourth disc includes individual Nocturnes by various contemporaries of Chopin, of whom the best known are Clara Schumann and Charles-Valentin Alkan and the least known is Ignacy Feliks Dobrzynski.

Simple melodies appealingly and tenderly hover over richly figured harmonies and seem to drift out into infinity. John Field is the author of these magical nocturnes, and one generation before the much more famous Pole (Chopin) he combined strongly expressive romanticism with an extraordinary keyboard intuition. Stefan Irmer performs on volume 1 of the complete nocturnes of John Field. Field never viewed his works as finished; every time he performed them he added something new to them – inspired by the circumstances, the public, and the atmosphere of the moment. For this reason, some of his nocturnes have been transmitted in significantly different versions. Stefan Irmer rises to this challenging piano adventure: employing musical means from our times, he continues Field's music, adding his own ideas to it. Influences from jazz and tango are also in evidence.

Jenny Lin is one of the most respected young pianists today, admired for her adventurous programming and charismatic stage presence. She has been acclaimed for her “remarkable technical command” and “a gift for melodic flow” by The New York Times. The Washington Post praises “Lin’s confident fingers… spectacular technique… “, “…surely one of the most interesting pianists in America right now…” and Gramophone Magazine has hailed her as “an exceptionally sensitive pianist”. On this Steinway and Sons release, Lin lends her sensitivity and virtuosity to the Nocturnes of Chopin. They are generally considered among the finest short solo works for the piano and hold an important place in contemporary concert repertoire. Although Chopin did not invent the nocturne, he popularized and expanded on it, building on the form developed by Irish composer John Field.

The first volume of this series (Naxos 8.550761) mixed the first two sonatas of Field's Op. 1 with the first nine Nocturnes. The Sonata Op. 1 No. 3 in C minor logically appears on this second volume, in a most successful performance. Dedicated to Clementi, the first movement shows distinct tendencies towards 'Sturm und Drang'. Neither movement is fast: the concluding Rondo (marked Allegretto scherzando) is bursting with wit and charm to balance the stress of the first. This piece alone justifies the modest outlay for this disc. The remaining tracks, the next nine Nocturnes in the series, demonstrate Frith's sensitivity. Importantly, he shows a laudable restraint with the sustaining pedal. His sweet cantabile is the result of an acute musical sensitivity, and he never overblows the scale of these miniatures.

Irish by birth, John Field gained an international reputation as one of the finest pianists of his time, with an influential delicacy and nuance in his playing that is expressed in his innovative and poetically lyrical Nocturnes. Field’s earlier Sonatas are more classical in feel, but their sense of flow and dramatic narrative exhibit qualities that are developed and given added virtuoso panache in his fine Piano Concertos, works admired by Liszt, Chopin and Schumann. ‘Benjamin Frith has done a stellar job in bringing these concertos into the sunlight, brilliantly supported by the Northern Sinfonia under David Haslam’ (Pianist magazine).