John Field revived
K. L. Bailey | London United Kingdom | 01/08/2008
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Whereas in a Mozart Piano Concerto there is a dialogue between two more or less equal voices in the piano and orchestra with John Field an exuberant piano is definitely the dominant partner.Nevertheless he uses the orchestra with confidence and imagination to provide the necessary framework. On this evidence it is a pity that we have no orchestral work.
His fertile imagination constantly produces felicitous phrases which he is reluctant to part from and which might give rise, unfairly, to a charge that he is repetitious.
An immediate successor to Mozart and a contemporary of Beethoven although not a symphonist, never guilty of profundity and although to my knowledge he never wrote anything orchestral John Field, on musical merit, deserves to stand with the giants of his day as a great pianist composer. His 7 piano concertos are his monument.
He has an asssured place in the history of music as the ' inventor ' of the Nocturne."