A Touch of Silk
A Dubliner with a roving eye and a gift for melody, John Field challenged Europe’s pianists to demand more of themselves.
1782-1837
King George III 1760-1820
A Dubliner with a roving eye and a gift for melody, John Field challenged Europe’s pianists to demand more of themselves.
1782-1837
King George III 1760-1820
John Field (1782-1837) was an Irish composer admired by both Chopin and Liszt, who may be considered the ‘father’ of the great piano tradition of Russia. His legendary and enviable silken touch at the piano changed the way the instrument was played all over Europe.
JOHN Field made his Dublin debut as a pianist in 1792, aged ten, and a year later was whisked off to London and apprenticed to Muzio Clementi, building and demonstrating pianos in Clementi’s showrooms.
Following an accomplished performance of his own Piano Concerto in E flat in the King’s Theatre, London, when just sixteen, a glittering career beckoned. In 1802 it took him to Paris, St Petersburg and Moscow, where he settled from 1806, moving to St Petersburg in 1812. When not distracted by champagne, Havana cigars, and female company, Field excelled as a teacher, and the pianists of Russia and Western Europe flocked to him, coveting the Irishman’s silken touch and ability to make a piano sing.
Following another European tour, declining health brought Field’s public career to a close in 1835, and he died in Moscow two years later. But already he had changed the musical taste of a generation, and composers from Chopin to Mussorgsky have kept us in his debt ever since.