Field: Piano Sonatas, Variations, Rondo, Waltz

The Irish-born composer John Field is still celebrated today as 'the father of the nocturne' for his creation of a genre which went on to inspire Chopin and generations of Romantic-era composers for the piano.

Field's own talents at the piano were recognised early, when the boy was just nine years old, and further nurtured by Muzio Clementi when the Italian-born, London-resident composer and publisher took him on as a pupil. Thus although the first three of Field's sonatas date from 1801, when he was still a teenager, they are the fruit of a decade-long devotion to the art and craft of music.