Field: Piano Concertos Nos. 2 & 7 & Piano Sonata No. 4

Dublin-born prodigy John Field enjoyed a wide reputation and great popularity. He was renowned as a soloist for his delicacy of nuance and as a composer for his cultivation of that most poetic of forms, the nocturne. His Piano Concertos were eagerly anticipated and the première of the Concerto No. 7 in Paris on Christmas Day 1832 was attended by both Chopin and Liszt. Ingeniously structured in two movements, its Rondo finale evokes the ballroom and Russia in a series of constant contrasts. The Irish Concerto is a reworking of the first movement of Field’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in A flat major. Piano Concertos No. 1-6 can be heard on 8.553770, 8553771 and 8574221.