John Field and the Alternative History of Concerto First-Movement Form

Despite the prominent status John Field's seven piano concerti enjoyed during his lifetime, lingering complaints of formal incompetence have combined with the critique of virtuosity and collusion between Formenlehre and Austrocentric conceptions of canon to guarantee their subsequent marginality. This essay re-evaluates these works as a platform for critiquing recent trends in Formenlehre. It contrasts the development of the theory of concerto first-movement form out of the reception of Mozart's piano concerti with the localized influence Mozart exerted over the genre's development in the early nineteenth century. Situating designs in Field's concerti that diverge from Mozartian norms within a practice evolving in London in the last decade of the eighteenth century, I call for a more historically nuanced formal theory, arguing that our persisting habit of theorizing concerto first-movement form in relation to a dominant Mozartian archetype misrepresents a large proportion of the subsequent repertory.