In any consideration of Chopin’s Nocturnes, however brief, the name of john Field is bound to crop up sooner or later, so let us start with him. He was born in Dublin in 1782, migrated to London with his father eleven years later, became a pupil of Clementi who used him to demonstrate and sell his pianos, and settled in Russia in I804, where he was the popular and well-paid music-teacher of many members of the aristocracy. Later in life he toured Europe as a virtuoso pianist, playing in the main his own works, but intem- perate habits took their inevitable toll and he died in Moscow in I837. A Today Field is chiefly remembered as the creator of both the name and the form of the Nocturne for piano. “Nocturne”, or more frequently “Nocturno”, was by no means a term previously unknown in music but heretofore it had been used chiefly to denote a work or movement of the serenade type and written for a group of instruments. A Field’s Nocturnes, which are not heard so often today as their merits deserve, made a powerful appeal to Chopin, but the feeling was not reciprocated. The elder man seems to have been something of a “hearty” and rather despised the morbidity and melancholy of Chopin, and on one occasion described his talent as that of the hospital. No real comparison between diametrically opposed characters is ever possible. The Nocturnes of Field are naive, fresh and charming whereas those of Chopin are sophisticated, elaborately decorated and exotic. If a floral parallel may be permitted, it is as futile to try to draw comparisons between them as between a wild daffodil and a brilliantly coloured and highly scented bloom of the conservatory. Moreover, if there is some truth in the stricture that in his less inspired moments Chopin can be guilty of sentimentality, it is equallytrue that on occasions Field can be insipid...
W. A. Chislett (from the Original Liner Notes)
Moura Lympany
Plays
Frédéric Chopin
(1810-1849)
Tracks
Ten Nocturnes
1 N° 1 in B-Flat minor, Op. 9, n° 1 5:13
2 N° 2 in E-Flat major, Op. 9, n° 2 4:13
3 N° 3 in B major, Op. 9, n° 3 5:39
4 N° 4 in F major, Op. 15, n° 1 3:55
5 N° 5 in F-Sharp major, Op. 15, n° 2 3:16
6 N° 6 in G minor, Op. 15, n° 3 3:13
7 N° 7 in C-Sharp minor, Op. 27, n° 1 4:47
8 N° 8 in D-Flat major, Op. 27, n° 2 4:38
9 N° 9 in B major, Op. 32, n° 1 4:11
10 N° 10 in A-Flat major, Op. 32, n° 2 4:35
*
Moura Lympany - p
Recorded ca 1960