From John Field to Alexander Scriabin: The Russian Nocturne

by Hermione Lai, Interlude

In our last blog we listened to some of the most beautiful Nocturnes by John Field. He is considered the father of the Nocturne, and his smaller-scale character pieces emerged from a growing salon culture throughout Europe. Field made fantastic use of the technical improvements of the piano, now allowing for a more sustained legato, greater variety of touch, subtler range of dynamics and a highly efficient sustaining pedal.

Anton Wachsmann: John Field, ca 1820 (Gallica: btv1b84179686)

On occasion, one can still hear performances of the Field Nocturnes in the concert halls, but they seem to have been relegated to preparatory exercises for the magnificent Nocturnes of Frédéric Chopin. He took on the legacy of Field’s invention and took this new salon genre to a deeper level of sophistication.

In light of Chopin’s achievements, it is easy to forget that Field’s influence was also felt in Russia. Field made Russia his home between 1802 and 1829, and he was deeply admired as a performer. However, he also set up a highly successful private piano studio, which contributed to the establishment of the Russian piano school and to Russian music itself. Will you join me on a journey through the wonderful world of the Russian Nocturne?

The Glinka Connection

Michael Glinka: Nocturne in E-Flat Major 

When I started looking for John Field’s Russian connections, I came across the marvellous website of pianist and scholar Daniel Pereira. He embarked on an ongoing 15-year research project that looks at the history of universal pianism and its interpreters and teachers. It’s called “Piano Traditions Through their Genealogy Trees” and features thousands of piano connections throughout time, including pianists, teachers and the establishment of national and regional schools of playing.

Mikhail Glinka

Thanks to Daniel Pereira, we can now trace the students of John Field and their role in the Russian Nocturne tradition. One of the biggest names to emerge is Mikhail Glinka (1804-1857), who is generally regarded as the father of Russian music. Apparently, Glinka had a number of piano lessons from Field, and we know that his operas “A Life for the Tsar” and “Lyudmila” are cornerstones of a Russian tradition.

Glinka was surprisingly well travelled, and he personally knew Donizetti, Bellini, Mendelssohn, Berlioz, Auber, and Victor Hugo. But even more interesting for this blog, he also composed a number of piano pieces, including several Nocturnes. His “Nocturne in E-flat Major” dates from 1828 but was published only fifty years later. Some commentators call it “the first Russian Nocturne,” and the connection to Field is obvious. The beautifully flowing and melancholy Nocturne in F minor dates from 1839 and was written for Glinka’s sister while she was away, hence the title “The Separation.”

The Rubinstein Connection

Alexander Villoing

Alexander Villoing (1804-1878) was born of a French émigré family and he studied piano with John Field in Moscow. By 1830, in the tradition of his teacher, he had established his own piano studio and soon enjoyed a reputation as one of the best pedagogues in Russia. Most significantly, in 1837 he was tasked with teaching the eight-year-old Anton Rubinstein. In fact, he is still considered Rubinstein’s only teacher and one of his best friends.

Villoing accompanied his young charge on a European concert tour between 1840 and 1843. He once again toured with Anton, his brother Nikolai and their mother Kalerija Christoforovna between 1844 and 1846. And we know that he became a professor at the St Petersburg Conservatory in 1862, an institution founded by Anton Rubinstein. 

Villoing not only taught at the St Petersburg Conservatory, he also published his “Piano School”, the École pratique du piano in 1863. That particular piano primer was also called “Exercises for the Rubinstein Brother.” It was adopted as the official piano method at the Conservatory, republished several times, and even translated into German and French.

Anton Rubinstein, 1842

As a student of Field, Villoing was almost certainly introduced to the Nocturnes, a tradition he passed on to Anton Rubinstein. Rubinstein started to compose at the age of 12 and established world fame as a pianist. However, he was always keen to establish himself as a composer, and “he was the first Russian composer whose works for solo piano embodied the same serious artistic ideas as his symphonies and chamber music.”

In all, Anton Rubinstein composed eleven Nocturnes, two of them for piano four hands. Thematically charming and pianistically perfect, the Rubinstein Nocturnes are written with great skill and refinement. A critic suggests, “rather than plumbing the deepest emotions, they are far above the average Romantic salon music. 

The Tchaikovsky Connection

Anton Gerke

Among Field’s students, we also find the pianist, composer and teacher Anton Gerke (1812-1870). He was the son of a Polish violinist, and he personally knew Liszt, Thalberg, and Clara Schumann. I don’t know much about his apprenticeship with John Field, but by 1831 he was appointed court pianist in St Petersburg. Gerke was also involved with setting up the Russian Music Society.

Anton Gerke taught at the St Petersburg Conservatory between 1862 and 1870, and among his students were Nikolay Zaremba, Nadeszhda Rimskaya-Korsakova, Modest Mussorgsky, and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Of course, when we look at the Tchaikovsky connections, we also find Anton Rubinstein.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Two Pieces Op. 10, No. 1 “Nocturne in F Major” 

Tchaikovsky and Anton Rubinstein did not get along at all. Tchaikovsky was a student in Rubinstein’s instrumentation classes in the conservatory’s first intake in 1862. Rubinstein was unquestionably the greatest pianist besides Franz Liszt, and he knew it. Rubinstein considered himself a successor of Schubert and Chopin, and he very much disliked Tchaikovsky’s music.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

As Tchaikovsky later wrote, “In my younger days, I very impatiently blazed my way—tried to acquire a name and fame as a composer—and hoped that Rubinstein would help me in my quest for laurels. But I must confess with grief that Anton Rubinstein did nothing, absolutely nothing, to further my desires and projects.”

Tchaikovsky composed his two Nocturnes in the 1870s, and “they are generally regarded as real jewels of Russian music.” He almost certainly knew the Nocturnes by Field, Rubinstein, and Chopin, but he also seems to take his bearing from Glinka. A pianist writes, “Tchaikovsky’s nocturnes abound with the heartfelt poetry of everyday life, and in following Field, places floating melodies above repeated pulsating chords.” Tchaikovsky also loved to place his melodies in the cello register of the piano, “creating an almost orchestral texture.” 

The Glazunov Connection

Alexander Dubuque

We must count the pianist and teacher Alexander Dubuque (1812-1898) among the most influential students of John Field. He was probably of French descent, and as one of the most influential teachers in Russia, Dubuque carried the piano tradition of John Field into the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Among his most distinguished students were Balakirev and Nikolay Zverev, the teacher of Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, and Ziloti. Dubuque was known for an intellectually controlled, poised and precise style that became associated with the Field-Dubuque Moscow tradition. He even published a book on the technique of piano playing and one on his “Reminiscences of Field.”

Mily Balakirev

Both Tchaikovsky and Balakirev dedicated piano pieces to Dubuque, and it was Mily Balakirev, a member of the famed “The Five,” who discovered Alexander Glazunov. Glazunov had started taking piano lessons at the age of nine and fashioned his first compositions at the age of 11. Balakirev took his early compositions to Rimsky-Korsakov, and among his early works, we find two Nocturnes. These youthful works show clear musical attention to texture, clarity of melodic line and harmonic sumptuousness, all attributes going back to John Field.

Alexander Glazunov

The Rachmaninoff Connection

Nikolai Zverev

The Field student Alexander Dubuque also taught Nikolay Zverev, born into an aristocratic family, in 1833. Zverev studied mathematics and physics at Moscow State University, but concurrently, he also took lessons from Dubuque. Zverev inherited a large family fortune and moved to St Petersburg to become a civil servant. Unhappy with his career and urged on by Dubuque, he returned to Moscow to establish his private piano studio. When Nikolai Rubinstein invited him to teach at the Moscow Conservatory, he happily accepted.

Rachmaninoff was only 12 when he auditioned to become Zverev’s student. He was quickly accepted and entered the pianist’s home to receive private piano lessons. Rachmaninoff remembered, “I entered Zverev’s home with a heavy heart and foreboding, having heard tell of his severity and heavy hand, which he had no qualms of resorting to. Indeed, we were able to witness proof of this latter: Zverev had a temper and could launch himself at a person, fists flailing, or hurl some object at the offender. I myself had been the object of his fury on three or four occasions.”

Rachmaninoff continued, “but all other talk of his exacting and severe manner were false. This was a man of rare intellect, generosity and kindness. He commanded a great deal of respect among the best people of his time. Indeed, discipline entered my life.” In May 1886, Zverev took his students to Crimea, where Rachmaninoff continued his studies in hopes of being accepted into Anton Arensky’s class at the Moscow Conservatory.

Sergei Rachmaninoff

It was during this time that Rachmaninoff created his first composition, a now lost Etude in F-sharp Major. He also composed a group of pieces titled “Three Nocturnes,” works regarded as his first serious attempt at writing for the piano. The pieces are not entirely nocturnal in their approach, and they are certainly closer to Field than Chopin. The nocturnes were published only in 1949 without opus number, and while they lack maturity, they are full of suggestions of what was still to come.

First performed in 1892, Rachmaninoff’s C-sharp minor Prelude became his first real hit. In addition, Tchaikovsky tirelessly promoted Rachmaninoff’s talents, and the young composer was exceptionally successful in getting his early compositions into print. Rachmaninoff composed his “Morceaux de salon,” Op. 10, after graduation from the Moscow Conservatory in 1892. A “Nocturne in A minor” opens this collection of piano pieces, and like Field and Chopin, he concentrated on a framework of singing melodies supported by rich harmonies and elaborated by embellishments.

The Scriabin Connection

Georgy Konyus

With Alexander Scriabin we once again find the connection to John Field in the home of Nikolai Zverev. Scriabin had been able to play the piano with both hands by the time he was five, and he was able to reproduce the tunes he heard from passing organ grinders. He received his first formal music lessons from Georgy Konyus, who was not impressed. He writes, “He knew the scales and the tonalities, and with the weak sound of his little fingers which barely carried, he played to me, what exactly, I don’t remember, but it was accurate and satisfactory… he learned pieces quickly, but his performance, it should be remembered, as a result of the shortcomings of his physique, was always ethereal and monotonous.”

Because Scriabin could count on significant family connections, he was able to study with Taneyev, who prepared him for entry to the Moscow Conservatory. And in turn, Taneyev introduced Scriabin to Zverev. Zverev insisted that his students should live in his own house, and Scriabin “learnt not only French and German but also the manners of high society; he was shown great literature and how to drink vodka.”

Scriabin studied among a group of boys of similar age, and that included Rachmaninoff and Goldenweiser. During his study with Zverev, Scriabin performed Schumann’s “Papillons” in the Great Hall of the Charitable Society. That performance showed some obvious talent “despite some inaccuracy.” It was suggested that Scriabin became Zverev’s favourite student, but things changed when his young charge tried his hands at composition. When he dedicated a Nocturne in F-sharp minor to his teacher, later to be published as Op. 5, No. 1, Zverev put his foot down and told him to stop composing.

Alexander Scriabin

From his very beginnings, Scriabin loved the music of Chopin. It’s hardly surprising that we should find a couple of nocturnes in his oeuvre. Stephen Coombs writes, “The Two Nocturnes Op 5, written in 1890, have only the faintest suggestion of reflective ‘night music’ and could as easily have been titled ‘impromptus’ or ‘poems.’ Both pieces display an increased sensuousness and rhythmic freedom together with a more confident and daring use of harmony.”

Scriabin wrote only one more Nocturne, the second of his Two Pieces for Left Hand, Op. 9. Competing against the likes of Rachmaninoff, Hofmann and Lhévinne, Scriabin temporarily lost the full use of his right hand. Eager to prove his ability as a pianist, he turned the Nocturne into a particularly devilish technical exercise. As a pianist wrote, “with Scriabin, the nocturne breaks with the bel canto singing to which it was through John Field, historically linked.” Please join us next time when we take a closer look at the 10 most beautiful Nocturnes by Frédéric Chopin.

Composers Like Chopin: Ten Composers to Check Out

By Emily E.Hogstad, Interlude

Delicacy. Poignancy. Romance. These are just a few of the words often associated with Frédéric Chopin‘s timeless compositions for piano.

Frédéric Chopin © ClassicFM

That said, Chopin’s music doesn’t have a monopoly on those adjectives.

Today, we’re looking at ten works by ten composers who, just like Chopin, understood the piano’s expressive power…while forging their own creative identities, too.

If you’re looking for music like Chopin’s, here are ten suggestions for your playlist:

John Field (1782-1837)

Pianist and composer John Field was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1782.

He studied with Muzio Clementi in London and toured Europe with him, finally settling in St. Petersburg in 1802.

John Field, 1820

In his late twenties, he began experimenting musically. He started writing short pieces for solo piano featuring an arpeggiated accompaniment in the left hand and a highly chromatic melody in the right hand. These pieces would usually be poetic and melancholy in nature. He called them “Nocturnes.” And so a new genre of piano music was born, that Chopin would later perfect.

You can hear Field’s influence in Chopin’s nocturnes.

Maria Szymanowska (1789-1831) 

Maria Szymanowska was born Marianna Agata Wołowska in Warsaw in 1789.

Maria Szymanowska

In 1810, she married a man named Józef Szymanowski, a wealthy landowner, and she also made her public debut as a pianist.

Many women musicians of this era gave up their careers once they got married, but not Szymanowska. Ultimately, she split from her husband and began touring Europe, spending a great deal of time in St. Petersburg. (And in case you’re wondering, yes, she did cross paths with Field!) She died there in 1831 during a cholera epidemic.

Musicologist Sławomir Dobrzański writes, “Szymanowska’s musical style is parallel to the compositional starting point of Frédéric Chopin; many of her compositions had an obvious impact on Chopin’s mature musical language.”

Mikhail Glinka (1804-1857)

Glinka was born in Russia in 1804. He attended a school in St. Petersburg for children of the nobility and took three lessons from John Field while there.

Portrait of Mikhail Glinka, 1840

When he became an adult, he joined the Foreign Office, but by night, he kept pursuing music. He ultimately developed a great passion for expressing Russian nationalism in music, and encouraging a specifically Russian school of music.

Most of his best-known music dates from after that revelation. However, the music from his young dilettante days – like this Nocturne from 1828 – feels similar in some ways to Chopin’s and certainly reveals Field’s influence.

Franz Liszt (1811-1886) 

Liszt and Chopin met at the latter’s first Parisian concert in 1832. They moved in the same aristocratic Parisian circles and their lives shared important themes, chief among them their devotion to their respective homelands (Hungary and Poland).

Franz Liszt, 1847

They respected each other a great deal, and Liszt was deeply saddened by Chopin’s early death in 1849. Liszt went so far as to write a biography in memory of his friend.

It is believed that Liszt’s third Consolation in D-flat major is modeled after Chopin’s Nocturne Op. 27, No. 2. This piece by Liszt was published in 1850, the year after Chopin’s death.  

Clara Schumann (1819-1896) 

Clara Wieck, who became known as Clara Schumann after her marriage to composer Robert Schumann, began championing the works of Chopin when she was a child prodigy touring across Europe.

Robert and Clara Schumann

In 1832, the same year that Liszt and Chopin met, a young Clara Wieck heard Chopin in concert. She never forgot the experience.

Clara Wieck Schumann was always excited to play any new music that Chopin would write. She continued playing Chopin for decades after his death at important and prestigious venues, helping to ensure that he would stay in the repertoire. She ultimately emerged as one of the greatest pianists of her generation, and she brought Chopin’s music with her on that journey.

When Chopin came to visit her in 1836, she played this Chopinesque nocturne for him, as well as a variety of other pieces. He was delighted.

Thomas Tellefsen (1823-1874) 

Pianist and composer Thomas Tellefsen was born in Trondheim, Norway, in 1823.

As a young man, it became his dream to study with Chopin, and so he left his native Norway for Paris.

Thomas Tellefsen

Unfortunately for Tellefsen, however, not just anyone could study with Chopin; he was in high demand as a teacher.

Luckily, in 1844, Chopin’s partner, authoress George Sand, put in a good word for Tellefsen, and Chopin accepted him as a student. Chopin was impressed by his talent, and eventually, the two men became friends and traveling companions.

Chopin viewed Tellefsen as a major pedagogical heir, tasking him with writing a pianoforte method based on what he’d learned. However, if Tellefsen did complete it, no record of it exists.

What does exist are his compositions in a style a la Chopin.

Carl Filtsch (1830-1845) 

Carl Filtsch was born in present-day Romania in 1830. He was a child prodigy, and his family relocated to Paris when he was eleven so he could take lessons from Chopin.

Chopin didn’t teach children, but he made an exception for Filtsch. Indeed, he started teaching him three lessons a week.

Carl Filtsch

Filtsch eventually began touring Europe to acclaim, but he died of tuberculosis in Venice when he was only fifteen years old.

One of Chopin’s friends wrote in 1843 that, “My God! What a child! Nobody has ever understood me as this child has…It is not imitation, it is the same sentiment, an instinct that makes him play without thinking as if it could not have been any other way.”

Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924) Play

Chopin died when Fauré was only a few years old, but something about Chopin’s brand of poignancy and elegance spoke to the Frenchman. When Fauré began writing his own nocturnes in the mid-1870s, he reached back to an earlier generation for inspiration.

John Singer Sargent: Gabriel Fauré, 1896

Fauré, like Chopin, was obsessed with writing for piano. “In piano music, there’s no room for padding – one has to pay cash and make it consistently interesting. It’s perhaps the most difficult genre of all,” he wrote.

His first nocturne, dating from ca. 1875, features an opening theme that immediately recalls to mind Chopin’s Prelude in E-minor.

Even when the nocturne wanders into more experimental harmonies or rhythms, a Chopinesque character still remains.

Juliusz Zarębski (1854-1885) 

Juliusz Zarębski was born in 1854 in present-day Ukraine, a country that in the past had been under Polish rule. His hometown Zhytomyr is between Kyiv (two hours away by car) and Warsaw (nine hours).

Juliusz Zarębski

Zarębski studied in Rome and St. Petersburg as a young man, taking lessons from Liszt and setting to music work by poet Adam Mickiewicz (who, interestingly, was Maria Szymanowska’s son-in-law). He spent formative time in places that were deeply influenced by Chopin’s own influences, and it shows.

Tragically, his life path followed Chopin’s in a grim way: he became ill with tuberculosis and died at the age of 31. He left behind a catalog of lovely music, perfect for a Chopin listener looking for something fresh.

Rosemary Brown (1916-2001)

Rosemary Brown was a psychic medium from twentieth century Britain who claimed to channel the works of the great composers.

Rosemary Brown

The story of Rosemary Brown’s musical career is odd and fascinating. To make a long story short, Brown said that she could communicate with dead composers. (For what it’s worth, she claimed that Chopin was horrified by television.)

During their interactions, the composers dictated pieces to her in a variety of ways. She said that Chopin wrote this one.

Is this piece really Chopin composing from the afterlife? Well, frankly, deciding that is a bit beyond our pay grade, but you’re free to believe whatever you want! If nothing else, it’s a great story.

Conclusion

Regardless of what you think about the work of Rosemary Brown, here’s the truth: Chopin didn’t need a psychic medium to speak through the music of those who came after him.

Many composers shared his artistic priorities and delicate touch and wrote incredibly poignant, romantic pieces of Chopinesque music that we can still enjoy today. We hope you enjoy our picks!