Starter Packs

Complete your collection with these curated titles, grouped at a special discount.

Shop Now
Field: 18 Nocturnes / Tyler Hay
Piano Classics

Field: 18 Nocturnes / Tyler Hay

Classical Romantic Melancholic Serene Intimate
$21.99

Details

Composer
John Field
Artist
Tyler Hay
Format
CD
Label
Piano Classics
Released
Feb 16, 2024
Catalog #
PCL10288
UPC
5029365102889

About

As the pre-eminent forerunners to Chopin’s works in the same genres, the Nocturnes of John Field have few rivals for music well known by history but so seldom heard. They were largely inspired by the slow movements of Classical concertos, Mozart above all, as well as opera arias. From them, Field evolved his own firm concept of a form with rich harmonies and gentle dynamics to suggest the night and dreaming, though in fact he began by giving these pieces traditional names such as Pastorale, Serenade and "Romance. He wrote the 18 works not as a set, but over the course of 15 years, rarely completing more than one and never more than three in a single year. Liszt observed in them ‘The total absence of everything that looks to effect'.

Even when he settled upon Nocturne, Field bestowed upon some of them a qualifying subtitle: ‘Cradle Song’ (No.6), ‘Reverie’ (No.7), ‘Song Without Words’ (No.13), ’Nocturne Pastorale’ (No.17), and ‘Nocturne characteristique Midi’ (No.18). This last Nocturne stands apart from its companions as a tribute to midday, cast as an Allegro, with a coda in which a chiming clock strikes twelve as quicker notes laugh and dance around the repeated note.

As a window on the salons of 19th century Europe, the Nocturnes are taxing neither to play nor to listen to, but they are polished with painstaking finesse, and they demand from the performer all the subtle pianistic guile of Chopin’s works: notably a command of rubato to shape the melodies, and the imaginative and technical capacities of a coloristic palette to bring variety without eccentricity to the sequence.

Tyler Hay can call upon such talents and skills as critics have recognized in his previous recordings for Piano Classics such as an album devoted to the music of John Ogdon (PCL10132) ‘Tyler Hay is a formidable pianist… I believe John Ogdon would be very pleased by these performances of his music’ (Fanfare). ‘The young pianist Tyler Hay has brilliantly mastered and assimilated these often elusive scores, even to the point where I heretically prefer his interpretations to Ogdon’s’ (Gramophone).

Tracklist 18 tracks

  1. 1 Nocturne No. 1 in E-Flat Major, H. 24 03:22
    Track
    1
    Title
    Nocturne No. 1 in E-Flat Major, H. 24
    Duration
    03:22
    Composer
    John Field
    Performer
    Tyler Hay
  2. 2 Nocturne No. 2 in C Minor, H. 25 03:43
    Track
    2
    Title
    Nocturne No. 2 in C Minor, H. 25
    Duration
    03:43
    Composer
    John Field
    Performer
    Tyler Hay
  3. 3 Nocturne No. 3 in A-Flat Major, H. 26 03:47
    Track
    3
    Title
    Nocturne No. 3 in A-Flat Major, H. 26
    Duration
    03:47
    Composer
    John Field
    Performer
    Tyler Hay
  4. 4 Nocturne No. 4 in A Major, H. 36 06:24
    Track
    4
    Title
    Nocturne No. 4 in A Major, H. 36
    Duration
    06:24
    Composer
    John Field
    Performer
    Tyler Hay
  5. 5 Nocturne No. 5 in B-Flat Major, H. 37A 02:30
    Track
    5
    Title
    Nocturne No. 5 in B-Flat Major, H. 37A
    Duration
    02:30
    Composer
    John Field
    Performer
    Tyler Hay
  6. 6 Nocturne No. 6 in F Major, H. 40A 04:30
    Track
    6
    Title
    Nocturne No. 6 in F Major, H. 40A
    Duration
    04:30
    Composer
    John Field
    Performer
    Tyler Hay
  7. 7 Nocturne No. 7 in C Major, H. 45A 06:09
    Track
    7
    Title
    Nocturne No. 7 in C Major, H. 45A
    Duration
    06:09
    Composer
    John Field
    Performer
    Tyler Hay
  8. 8 Nocturne No. 8 in A Major, H. 14E 04:32
    Track
    8
    Title
    Nocturne No. 8 in A Major, H. 14E
    Duration
    04:32
    Composer
    John Field
    Performer
    Tyler Hay
  9. 9 Nocturne No. 9 in E-Flat Major, H. 30 03:53
    Track
    9
    Title
    Nocturne No. 9 in E-Flat Major, H. 30
    Duration
    03:53
    Composer
    John Field
    Performer
    Tyler Hay
  10. 10 Nocturne No. 10 in E Minor, H. 46B 03:48
    Track
    10
    Title
    Nocturne No. 10 in E Minor, H. 46B
    Duration
    03:48
    Composer
    John Field
    Performer
    Tyler Hay
  11. 11 Nocturne No. 11 in E-Flat Major, H. 56A 04:58
    Track
    11
    Title
    Nocturne No. 11 in E-Flat Major, H. 56A
    Duration
    04:58
    Composer
    John Field
    Performer
    Tyler Hay
  12. 12 Nocturne No. 12 in G Major, H. 58D 02:07
    Track
    12
    Title
    Nocturne No. 12 in G Major, H. 58D
    Duration
    02:07
    Composer
    John Field
    Performer
    Tyler Hay
  13. 13 Nocturne No. 13 in D Minor, H. 59A 04:02
    Track
    13
    Title
    Nocturne No. 13 in D Minor, H. 59A
    Duration
    04:02
    Composer
    John Field
    Performer
    Tyler Hay
  14. 14 Nocturne No. 14 in C Major, H. 60A 08:29
    Track
    14
    Title
    Nocturne No. 14 in C Major, H. 60A
    Duration
    08:29
    Composer
    John Field
    Performer
    Tyler Hay
  15. 15 Nocturne No. 15 in C Major, H. 61A 04:01
    Track
    15
    Title
    Nocturne No. 15 in C Major, H. 61A
    Duration
    04:01
    Composer
    John Field
    Performer
    Tyler Hay
  16. 16 Nocturne No. 16 in F Major, H. 62 04:22
    Track
    16
    Title
    Nocturne No. 16 in F Major, H. 62
    Duration
    04:22
    Composer
    John Field
    Performer
    Tyler Hay
  17. 17 Nocturne No. 17 in E Major, H. 54A 10:51
    Track
    17
    Title
    Nocturne No. 17 in E Major, H. 54A
    Duration
    10:51
    Composer
    John Field
    Performer
    Tyler Hay
  18. 18 Nocturne No. 18 in E Major, H. 13R, "Le midi" 04:56
    Track
    18
    Title
    Nocturne No. 18 in E Major, H. 13R, "Le midi"
    Duration
    04:56
    Composer
    John Field
    Performer
    Tyler Hay