Field
Complete Nocturnes
Alice Sara Ott (piano)
DG 486 6238 73:22 mins
Clip: Field - Nocturne No. 10 in E Major, H. 54 'Nocturne Pastorale'
John Field has spent his posthumous life in a state of permanent eclipse, with Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann and Liszt all pushing him into the role of a mere walk-on – good only for an occasional encore, in the great stream of music history. But as Alice Sara Ott observes, in Russia – where he spent most of his life – he was a megastar. It’s now time, she believes, for a reappraisal.
His most often played Nocturne is the fifth in B flat major, with its freewheeling melody and charming effects, but when these pieces are listened to as a complete set, the impression one gets is of a gradual self-liberation from the constricting stylistic constraints within which Field began composing in this form.
The first eight pieces all follow the same pattern, with their ornamentation sufficiently varied to hold our attention, but the tenth might almost be a Mozartian slow movement in its tone and cadences. The 13th marks the point where Field casts decorum aside, with a dark and sinister opening and a slow melody in a walking bass. And in the 16th he seems to have finally burst his bonds, with the shocking incursion of a stretch of thunderous bass. In its mannerisms and structure, the 18th piece could almost be a late Beethoven Bagatelle, a small work with a much larger work struggling to get out.
The German-Japanese Alice Sara Ott had a brilliant pianistic career in her teens, but at 30 she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. Now 36, she has never stopped performing; this album is just the latest measure of her heroic triumph over adversity. With its pearlised touch, and in the halo of a golden glow, her pianism is a delight: Field could not have wished for a better advocate. Michael Church