John Field’s Seven Piano Concertos (Born on July 26, 1782) The Seeds of Chopin

 by Georg Predota  July 26th, 2026

The legendary pianist and composer John Field (1782-1837), born somewhere between Beethoven and Schubert, was a new pianist for a new era. He is credited with writing music in a style closer to Chopin‘s and with inventing the nocturne.

Field’s nocturnes are a window into the salons of 19th-century Europe, but to celebrate his birthday on 26 July, let us highlight the more public side of his artistic persona by featuring his seven piano concertos. In fact, like any good Netflix series, let’s binge-listen to all of them.  

A Pianist for a New Age

In short, John Field was born in Dublin and moved to London to study with Muzio Clementi. The 12-year-old boy was an instant sensation, and Clementi took him on extended tours of the continent. After performing in Paris and Vienna, teacher and student went on an excursion to Russia.

In time, he became the biggest name on the salon circuit, mesmerising audiences with performances of his music. He also set up a highly successful private piano studio, giving lessons to affluent and well-educated members of society.

John Field

John Field was a special virtuoso, with contemporaries telling of his delicacy of touch and the refinement of his sonority. Powerful chords and blazing velocity were simply not part of his style. Instead, particularly in his character pieces, he focused entirely on tone, colour and shading.

In his short twilight meditations, the nocturnes, words faded away in favour of pure emotion. Field made great use of the technical improvements of the instrument, using a more sustained legato, a greater variety of touch, a subtler range of dynamics, and a more efficient use of the sustaining pedal.  

Pointers Towards Maturity

John Field performed his first piano concerto on 7 February 1799 at the King’s Theatre in London. However, it was first published only in 1814 in St Petersburg after having undergone substantial revisions. And we do know that Field himself sometimes played this concerto without an orchestra, omitting orchestral passages and making adjustments as necessary.

The work opens almost in a Mozartian style, but we soon hear the widely-spaced accompaniment with ornamented flourishes in the piano. A dramatic development switches to the minor key, and the thematic material sounds like modulating progressions later much used by Chopin.

The slow movement consists of two variations on James Hook’s song “Within a mile of Edinburgh Town,” introducing some fashionable exoticism. The Scottish air is simply stated and features the characteristic rhythmic snap. Short cadenzas lead to subsequent variations on the tune.

The concluding “Rondo” opens with an imitation of bagpipe drones, followed by a “cuckoo” motif in the piano. Plenty of Mozartian touches appear in the tutti passages, while the episodes offer some pianistic bravura.

As Philip Buttall writes, “Although this concerto does not show the composer as fully-developed, it does, nevertheless, exhibit one or two pointers towards his later style…There is a lot of passage-work not only to be seen again in Field’s works, but also to be developed in the works of Chopin. (Buttall, Field Concertos, 2005)   

A Blueprint for Chopin

Composed after settling in Russia, Field’s piano concerto No. 2 in A-flat major was a highly influential blueprint for Chopin’s own piano concertos. This once-celebrated concerto was admired and taught by Chopin, and Robert Schumann called it “divine.”

Title page: John Field’s Piano Concerto No. 2

Its origins probably date to around 1811, but it was first published in Leipzig in 1816. The first subject is given by the strings alone, and subsequently joined by clarinets and a lengthy tutti section.

However, it is with the piano’s first entry that Field established a new era, laying down the foundation on which the generation of Romantic composers would build. Here, the soloist enters with his own treatment of the principal theme, elegantly developed, before the music moves to the secondary contrast.

We might also mention that “Field’s accompanying use of the orchestra is considerably fuller and more imaginative than Chopin’s.” (Buttall, Field Concertos, 2005) The “Poco Adagio” is as much a Nocturne as any of his pieces in that genre, and it was published separately as a romance and a serenade.

The concluding “Rondo” is based on a bouncy melody that returns to frame various episodes, but the primary purpose of pianistic display is never really forgotten. This concerto was played throughout the 19th century, as the appealing thematic material and its most effective piano-writing easily account for its former popularity.  

A Tribute to Clementi

Field dedicated his Third Concerto to Muzio Clementi, and it seems to have been written before his second concerto. Stylistically it is closer to the Concerto No. 1, scored for similar orchestral forces and in the same key.

Unusually, the Third Concerto only features two long and brilliant outer movements, and in later years, Field often wedged one of his Nocturnes between these movements. In the featured Chandos recording, Field’s orchestral arrangement of the Nocturne in B-flat Major was used.

The opening “Allegro” movement opens with a beautiful orchestral theme that spins its way to a second group of lyrical contrasts. Once again, the piano makes a declamatory entrance and wanders expressively through a wide range of major and minor keys.

The finale is marked “Tempo di polacca” and unfolds in the manner of a polonaise used in Russia at balls and courtly occasions. It features a good-humoured theme followed by playful passage work. A central episode apparently made listeners weep, and it all ends in a jovial tutti. 

The Lyrical Romantic

Field’s fourth concerto in E-flat major probably dates from around 1814, and it has been described as one of the most beautiful of all Romantic concertos. Eve Bersham writes, “Field was at the height of his powers, as yet in good health and flourishing financially, his fame having by now spread far beyond St Petersburg. Soon the work was in print both in Russia and in Germany, and Field eventually made an arrangement of it for piano solo.” (Bersham, Field Piano Concertos)

Scored for a slightly smaller orchestra, the first subject is quietly announced by the strings alone, followed by a military-sounding transition that leads into the elegant second subject. The soloist’s first statement features lyrical embellishments before a tender Romantic theme is introduced.

The orchestral passages are primarily accompanimental, but they nevertheless provide some colourful passages. However, the stirring martial rhythms overrule all gentleness. The slow movement is titled “Siciliano,” and it might take its inspiration from a slow movement of a Mozart Piano concerto with hints of Mendelssohn sprinkled over the music.

The concluding “Allegretto” sounds like a nursery tune, with witty harmonic digressions and plenty of pianistic challenges. Alongside lively orchestration and brilliant piano writing, Field also reveals humour as an important facet of his musical personality.  

The Blazing Storm

Field’s 5th Piano Concerto was once among his most popular and colourful pieces. Inscribed “The Blazing Storm,” it originates from the rivalry between Field and Daniel Steibelt, who in 1815 also lived and worked in St Petersburg.

Steibelt had composed a concerto subtitled “The Storm,” and Field’s “Blazing Storm” was certainly calculated to outdo the programmatic effects of the earlier work. From the very beginning, Field is not simply suggesting a storm, but some kind of catastrophe resulting from it.

John Field: Nocturnes

The opening “Allegro” starts gently and lyrically, with no hint of the drama to come. However, regarding the development section, we understand the addition of a bass trombone and additional percussion. Now turning to C minor, with the wind increasing, there are rumbles of thunder in the distance.

We can hear some lighting, gusts of wind, and a downpour, when an unexpected harmonic digression leads to an enormous crash on the tam-tam. Once the storm subsides, we are still treated to a devilishly difficult cadenza.

The “Adagio” is mainly taken by the orchestra, with the piano entering in quick flurries between phrases. The orchestra continues serenely, and we enter the “Allegro” rondo without pause. Another light-hearted theme is decorated and embellished, offering plenty of charm and entertainment for an adventurous soloist.  

The Russian March

The Piano Concerto No. 6, again scored in C Major, was first heard in St Petersburg in 1819. Like all Field concertos, it was thoroughly revised before publication. The work opens with a grandiose military march that turns more lyrical. It is then decorated by the piano and spun into what could possibly pass as a Russian folksong.

The “Larghetto” turns out to be an arrangement of Field’s 6th nocturne, and the concluding “Moderato” might have been composed in some haste. It is, by comparison, probably the slightest and lightest in all of Field’s concertos.

It does include many florid and attractive passages, but there are no real contrasting episodes of any melodic distinction. As such, Field probably decided to conclude this work in an overly cheerful manner.

Seeds of Chopin

Field’s only concerto in the minor key had a lengthy gestation period. The first movement of Field’s Seventh Concerto was performed by the composer in Moscow in 1822. The completed work, with a dedication to Mademoiselle d’Albini, was first performed in 1832 in Paris and published two years later.

At the first complete performance in Paris, both Liszt and Chopin were in the audience, and Schumann later suggested that it may have influenced his own concerto. Field’s last concerto is scored for the full resources of the orchestra, including timpani and bass trombone.

The timpani open the first movement, followed by a subject played by the clarinet and bassoon. The piano then remains the centre of attention, including a slow section modelled after Nocturne No. 12. The second of the two movements is again a rondo, with the principal theme evoking Russian ballrooms.

The celebrated critic, François-Joseph Fétis, wrote in the Revue Musicale that the Seventh Concerto was “diffuse, but full of happy ideas.” For the Parisian public, however, it was an immediate success.

John Field’s Memorial plaque, Golden Lane

Philip Buttall writes, “John Field not only invented the nocturne, but also brought into being a whole new range of pianistic expressiveness and feeling, from the cantilena melodies, with their opera-like embellishments in the Nocturnes and the Concertos, to the bravura technical passages and devices in the latter, and in other works.” (Buttall, Field Concertos, 2005)

Having listened to all seven of Field’s concertos, I have been struck by how much of Field’s influence seems to be present in Chopin’s two concertos. The singing melodic lines, ornamental filigree, and nocturne-like lyricism abound, as does the tendency to treat the orchestra as an elegant frame for the piano’s poetic utterances. It seems that the seeds of Chopin’s concerto style had been planted several decades earlier.

The 10 Saddest Pieces by Frédéric Chopin

 by Emily E. Hogstad  May 18th, 2026

Few composers have been associated with sadness as consistently as Frédéric Chopin.

Across his nocturnes, preludes, mazurkas, ballades, and other works, Chopin returned again and again to expressing emotions of longing and resignation.

Frédéric Chopin

Those feelings were shaped by exile, chronic illness, and a persistent sense of isolation.

Today, we’re looking at ten of Chopin’s saddest pieces and tracing how he portrayed all the different shades of sadness: melancholy, grief, bitterness, and even numbness.   

Few pieces in the piano repertoire sound as immediately personal as this nocturne.

Its almost unbearable intimacy makes sense given its background: it was composed when Chopin was just twenty years old as an exercise for his beloved pianist sister Ludwika, who was about to embark on a study of his second concerto.

It would remain a private shared statement of grief between them for 45 years, only being published in 1875.

The only reason it survives at all is that Ludwika ignored her brother’s dying wishes to burn his unpublished manuscripts, meaning its very existence is a poignant symbol of a sister’s belief in her late brother’s talent.   

This prelude is part of a set of 24 preludes, one in each major and minor key.

Its right-hand melody is relatively static. The real movement here comes in the left-hand harmonies, constantly changing and slipping despairingly downward.

That steady sinking motion creates a sense of inevitability, as though the music already knows how it will end: on a quiet, heartbroken – although maybe reluctantly accepting – note. 

Waltzes are famous for being light and joyful dances. Therefore, at first glance, this waltz might seem to not belong on this list.

However, the more you listen, the more you hear emotions here that are usually not associated with dance music. This waltz has a sarcastic character and mocking undertone.

Chopin allows for a number of subtleties, tugging around the tempo in such a way that would make it very difficult to actually dance to. As a result, this is less a practical waltz and more a bitter portrait of one.  

Throughout his life, Chopin’s depression was often triggered by feeling like an outsider – culturally homeless and distanced from family and friends.

These emotions were especially strong during his first years in Paris in the early 1830s, after the failed November Uprising in Poland, which left him feeling unsafe returning home to Warsaw.

Here he channelled those emotions into a stylised version of a famously Polish dance: the mazurka.

Like the waltz in C-sharp minor, this is less a practical dance than a dance-tinged meditation on what it feels like to remember a lost place and time.   

Chopin continued writing mazurkas throughout his life; this one was written the year of his death, when it was becoming increasingly clear that he’d never see his beloved Poland again.

This final mazurka feels both more mature and cynical than the earlier one in A minor. This is the work of a composer who, over the years, had learned how to box up his emotions in a supremely artful fashion.

Taken together, these two mazurkas tell a story about how Chopin’s relationship with the mazurka and his exile changed: it’s the same sorrow, but he has lived nearly two decades with it, and the edges have softened.   

This brief prelude – under two minutes long – transforms sadness into something more monumental.

Its stark chordal writing and unyielding marchlike rhythm make that emotion feel massive: heavy, immovable, unconquerable.

Hans von Bülow

Conductor and pianist Hans von Bülow went so far as to nickname this prelude the Funeral March.

Pay attention to the pattern of the notes in the bass. That particular pattern is known as the “lament bass”, and you can hear it in other famous works like Henry Purcell‘s “Dido’s Lament” from his opera Dido and Aeneas.

However, unlike Purcell, here Chopin employs it in a context without words, leaving the listener to imagine their own tragic narrative.   

Unlike the introverted intimacy of the C-sharp minor nocturne that opened this list, this nocturne in C minor turns into the equivalent of a scream in a crowded room.

Pianist Theodor Kullak wrote of this nocturne, “The design and poetic contents of this nocturne make it the most important one that Chopin created; the chief subject is a masterly expression of a great powerful grief.”

At the work’s midpoint, its central climax swells into something truly operatic, requiring the performer to employ desperate octaves. This is loud, virtuosic grief, verging on crazed.   

Chopin’s first ballade is the most narrative-driven work on this list. It lasts around ten minutes, giving Chopin the time and freedom to craft an entire story.

Here, the grief and sadness are no longer static, like in some of the shorter works on this list. Instead, it evolves with all kinds of colours and shades of grief and pain.

Moments of lyric calm become overwhelmed by turbulence, and the ending is both virtuosic and catastrophic.

This is Chopin at his most dramatic.  

Chopin’s “Funeral March” (the third movement of his second piano sonata) is undoubtedly the most famous expression of grief in his entire output. In fact, its opening theme has become a cultural shorthand for death.

That memorable main theme comes across as monotone, calling to mind a mourner at a funeral who is feeling deeply emotional but numbly holding it together for the sake of ritual. The intensity of the delivery of the theme ebbs and flows.

In between, there are contrasting sections that call to mind that same mourner daydreaming of happier times.  

Polonaises – like mazurkas – are another uniquely Polish genre, tied closely to Chopin’s identity and his lifelong emotions of alienation and depression.

Some of Chopin’s polonaises are heroic. (One – his Polonaise in A-flat major – is actually outright nicknamed the “Heroic.”)

By contrast, this one feels tragic. The harmonies are dark; the chordal writing is thick in the bass.

Any sense of celebratory national pride is replaced by sadness and disillusionment. Pianist Arthur Rubinstein went so far as to call this polonaise a symbol of Polish tragedy.

However, its grief is not localised to a specific time or location; it is timeless. It portrays the kind of empty sadness everyone feels after the worst of acute grief has passed, in the numb, messy aftermath.

This was always one of Chopin’s greatest gifts as a musician: the ability to turn the sadness of his unique experiences into expressions of both sadness and beauty.

Conclusion

Sadness in Chopin’s music never registers on a single emotional register, but rather encompasses an entire spectrum of feelings. It can be confessional or ceremonial, restless or resigned, private or collective.

Taken together, these ten pieces offer a portrait of a composer who experienced sadness as a whole rainbow of emotions: a quality that has ensured his music’s relatability and popularity for nearly two hundred years.

That emotional breadth is what continues to draw listeners back to Chopin’s music – often at moments when they are searching for language for their own sadness.

Yuja Wang: Chopin Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor Op. 21 [HD]

Tokyo NHK Hall. San Francisco Symphony conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas Nov 22, 2016. 00:04 - 14:52 I. Maestoso 15:16 - 24:02 II. Larghetto 24:06 - 32:23 III. Allegro vivace Playlist:    • Yuja Wang Archives   This recording is provided by Yuja Wang Archives http://yujawang.nicerweb.com/