Nocturne No.13 in C minor

The invention of the Nocturne is generally credited to the Irish pianist John Field, who published his first three piano nocturnes in Leipzig in 1814. He was to write fifteen more such pieces, exploiting the possibilities of the newly developing pianoforte in melodies inspired by contemporary Italian operatic practice and accompaniments that broke away from the typical Alberti bass of an earlier generation. Field made his later career, from 1802 until his death in 1837, in Russia, and it was probable that Chopin heard something of his music in Warsaw. At any rate he wrote the first of his 21 Nocturnes in 1827, before he left Poland. His last Nocturne was written in 1846, three years before his death.