John Field
Irish pianist and composerWikipedia
97
MENTIONS
14
EPISODES
12
PODCASTS
Search complete. 97 mentions across 14 episodes found for "John Field".
Oct 20, 2026
Miwa MesserHOST
You find this out very quickly in the first few pages.
Miwa MesserHOST
John Field, the composer, has died.
Miwa MesserHOST
The bulk of the book, obviously, is each of their short.
Miwa MesserHOST
And then you choose an ending that is just delightful.
Yiyun LiGUEST
It's emotional without any language.
Yiyun LiGUEST
So that's important, I think, for the novel.
Miwa MesserHOST
Well, and especially, I mean, John...
Miwa MesserHOST
Fun fact, he shows up in Leo Tolstoy's
Mitzi RapkinHOST
And what drew you to this subject and these individuals?
Yiyun LiGUEST
I think what drew me to any subject was just curiosity at the beginning and not knowing who John Field is, seeing John Field appearing in a Russian book, an English name.
Yiyun LiGUEST
So every time something that doesn't quite make sense appears in life or in my reading, I investigate, I explore.
Yiyun LiGUEST
And so I did a little research on John Field and then there's only one very thin biography of his.
Yiyun LiGUEST
and his wife, Pecha Red, is only mentioned no more than five places in the book.
Yiyun LiGUEST
Now there's a wife who doesn't occupy much of a husband's biography, almost as a footnote to the husband's life.
Yiyun LiGUEST
And the migration of populations, you know, what Tolstoy calls the great migration of, you know, from West Europe to East Europe, from East Europe to West Europe, and also from the colonies to Europe and from Europe to colonies.
Yiyun LiGUEST
I think it's an exciting time.
Yiyun LiGUEST
Yes.
Yiyun LiGUEST
So John Field was, um, a Irish virtuoso who spent most of his adult life in Russia.
Yiyun LiGUEST
He invented the nocturne form, which was taken over by Chopin, and Chopin made that form, uh, popular.
Yiyun LiGUEST
But John Field was the first one to write nocturnes, and he was considered the grandfather of Russian music.
Yiyun LiGUEST
And Adelaide was his wife and, again, a historical figure, but we did not know much about her.
Terry GrossHOST
But w- was she a prodigy like she is in your book?
Yiyun LiGUEST
She was an orphan born and raised in Pondicherry, French India.
Yiyun LiGUEST
And when she appeared in history, she was a teenager in Moscow, and she was extremely talented.
Charlie GibsonHOST
Those are mostly associated with Chopin.
Charlie GibsonHOST
But John Field, she was interested in because John Field was the piano teacher of Tolstoy's mother.
Kate GibsonHOST
Yeah.
Kate GibsonHOST
So she falls down that rabbit hole.
Kate GibsonHOST
What's somebody
Charlie GibsonHOST
named John Field doing in Russia teaching Tolstoy's mother the piano? I'd like to find out about him.
Yiyun LiGUEST
So,
Charlie GibsonHOST
she's written this novel, which is going to be the first of three of a trilogy.
Yiyun LiGUEST
Mm-hmm.
Whitney TerrellHOST
Um, your novel traces the lives of John Field and Adelaide Perceron.
Whitney TerrellHOST
That's how I wanna say it?
Yiyun LiGUEST
Yes, Perceron.
Whitney TerrellHOST
What was his life as, like as a child, and how did he come to see himself as a prodigy?
Yiyun LiGUEST
Right.
Yiyun LiGUEST
So John Field, as you said, was born in Dublin, uh, in the late 18th, uh, 18th century, and it was the time for every musical child to look up to Mozart as an example, because Mozart's father made a great fortune, you know, touting that little prodigy around the continent.
Yiyun LiGUEST
So, so John Field was a musical prodigy, and, uh, was raised as a prodigy with the hope to be the next Mozart.
Madeleine BrandHOST
Boris, your final selection is Music Against the Night by the Chinese-American author Yiyun Li.
Madeleine BrandHOST
And it's based on a true story of the Irish pianist John Field and his wife, the French pianist Adelaide Percheron.
Madeleine BrandHOST
And it takes place in 19th century Europe.
Madeleine BrandHOST
This is a departure from her recent work in that her recent work was memoir and a really intense memoir about the death of her sons.
Yiyun LiGUEST
Yes.
Yiyun LiGUEST
So John Field was, um, a Irish virtuoso who spent most of his adult life in Russia.
Yiyun LiGUEST
He invented the nocturne form, which was taken over by Chopin, and Chopin made that form, uh, popular.
Yiyun LiGUEST
But John Field was the first one to write nocturnes, and he was considered the grandfather of Russian music.
Yiyun LiGUEST
And Adelaide was his wife and, again, a historical figure, but we did not know much about her.
Terry GrossHOST
But w- was she a prodigy like she is in your book?
Yiyun LiGUEST
She was an orphan born and raised in Pondicherry, French India.
Yiyun LiGUEST
And when she appeared in history, she was a teenager in Moscow, and she was extremely talented.
Cally BeatonHOST
He and Ronnie Ancona are probably best known for their portrayal of Posh and Bex.
Cally BeatonHOST
He's written and starred in three plays for Radio 4 about Eric Satie, John Field and George Bernard Shaw.
Cally BeatonHOST
And he took part with Eddie Izzard in the first ever stand-up show performed by two English comics totally in French.
Cally BeatonHOST
That was in Sheffield.
16 MINS LATER
Cally BeatonHOST
You've got hair.
Cally BeatonHOST
And in terms of the sort of music you play, because you also did your, you had your Radio 4 plays, one of which was also Satie, right? It was three pieces in the shape of a pear.
Cally BeatonHOST
I was interested also that you chose John Fields, which not always has obvious a choice.
Cally BeatonHOST
Is that to do with your Irish heritage?
speaker_0HOST
The premise is stunning, honestly.
speaker_0HOST
It is set in 1837, moving between Smolensk and Moscow, and it follows the historical figure John Field.
speaker_1HOST
The Irish pianist.
speaker_0HOST
Yes, the Irish pianist who actually invented the nocturne, which is the style we usually associate with Chopin.
speaker_0HOST
Oh, that's such a cool way to describe it.
speaker_1HOST
What is captivating is the deep contrast in their relationships to their own musical genius.
speaker_1HOST
John Field was essentially drilled, beaten and bullied into virtuosity.
speaker_1HOST
He was aggressively pushed through the drawing rooms of London and exported to Russia with a crushing expectation that he would serve as the next Mozart.
Brian LarsonHOST
The novel draws from the lives of two real musicians.
Brian LarsonHOST
John Field was an Irish pianist and composer born in 1782, became celebrated across Europe and Russia, and is credited with developing the nocturne, the dreamy musical form most of us now associate with Chopin.
Brian LarsonHOST
Then there is Adeline Percereau, born in Pondicherry in French India, orphaned young, and of mixed ancestry.
Brian LarsonHOST
Adeline pursues a musical life of her own in a world that offers her very different possibilities than it offers John.
4 more episodes mention John Field.
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