Seoirse Ó Dochartaigh

Nocturne

Nocturne No.18 (after Field)

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Nocturne in B flat (After John Field)

Field wrote 18 Nocturnes (1812-36) all in different keys and couched in different moods. I painted all 18 of them in the year 2000 and they were exhibited all over Ireland that year. The rare Nocturne in B flat only came to light in 1991. I tried to convey the mood of each piece by choosing particular colour schemes to match the tonality in each case.

Little Pictures of the Night at the Abbey Mill Wheel

 

It was a night of music and magic. In the beautiful pastoral setting of the Abbey Mill Wheel, just outside Ballyshannon, the Coffee Shop hosted an exhibition of paintings by Seoirse Ó Dochartaigh called “Nocturne”.  The theme of the show was music, but music of the night in particular.

The inspiration for these Nocturne paintings came from John Field, an Irish composer born in Dublin in 1782. Field made his home in Russia and gained a huge reputation for himself there both as a pianist and composer. His music has been somewhat neglected over the last 100 years or so but today most of his compositions are available on CD performed by internationally acclaimed pianists like John O’Conor. Field’s name has at last been reinstated as one of the great pianists of all time and as the man who invented the piano “Nocturne”.

 

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Description

“Nocturnes of John Field”

Some definitions of nocturne:

Dreamy musical piece

Short lyric piece

A composition of a pensive, melancholy character

Slow, soft and sentimental

Quiet, lyrical character

Suggesting night and usually quiet and meditative

Dreamy, pensive composition for the piano

A reflective character piece

I know these piano nocturnes of John Field intimately, and even did a series of paintings in the year 2000 based on the complete set. I referred to the paintings then as “little pictures of the night”, but Field didn’t compose his nocturnes with any programme in mind. If he did, he never told anyone.

An Irishman – born Golden Lane, Dublin; living in Russia from 1803 – he was considered to be one of the greatest pianists of the first four decades of the nineteenth century. Ironically, he should have been known there as “The father of Russian music”, such was his influence, but that title went to the Russian-born, Glinka, one of his pupils. In the delicate nocturnes he anticipated Chopin in his style, technique and spirit but, as David Branson1 pointed out, Chopin was influenced by a myriad of techniques innovated by Field, present not only in the nocturnes, but also in his piano concertos and elsewhere.

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