[Footnote:  In the Revue musicale of December 29, 1832.  The criticism is worth reproducing:—­“Quiconque n’a point entendu ce grand pianiste ne peut se faire d’idee du mecanisme admirable de ses doigts, mecanisme tel que les plus grandes difficultes semblent etre des choses fort simples, et que sa main n’a point l’air de se mouvoir.  Il n’est d’ailleurs pas mains etonnant dans l’art d’attaquer la note et de varier a l’infini les diverses nuances de force, de douceur et d’accent.  Un enthousiasme impossible a decrire, un veritable delire s’est manifeste dans le public a l’audition de ce concerto plein de charme rendu avec une perfection de fini, de precision, de nettete et d’expression qu’il serait impossible de surpasser et que bien peu de pianistes pourraient egaler.”  Of a Ms. concerto played by Field at his second concert, given on February 3, 1833, Fetis says that it is “diffus, peu riche en motifs heureux, peu digne, en un mot, de la renommee de son auteur,” but “la delicieuse execution de M. Field nous a tres-heureusement servi de compensation”]

Indeed, the contradictory criticisms to be met with in books and newspapers leave on the reader the impression that Field disappointed the expectations raised by his fame.  The fact that the second concert he gave was less well attended than the first cannot but confirm this impression.  He was probably no longer what he had been; and the reigning pianoforte style and musical taste were certainly no longer what they had been.  “His elegant playing and beautiful manner of singing on the piano made people admire his talent,” wrote Fetis at a later period (in his “Biographie universelle des Musiciens"), “although his execution had not the power of the pianists of the modern school.”  It is not at all surprising that the general public and the younger generation of artists, more especially the romanticists, were not unanimously moved to unbounded enthusiasm by “the clear limpid flow” and “almost somnolent tranquillity” of Field’s playing, “the placid tenderness, graceful candour, and charming ingenuousness of his melodious reveries.”  This characterisation of Field’s style is taken from Liszt’s preface to the nocturnes.  Moscheles, with whom Field dined in London shortly before the latter’s visit to Paris, gives in his diary a by no means flattering account of him.  Of the man, the diarist says that he is good-natured but not educated and rather droll, and that there cannot be a more glaring contrast than that between Field’s nocturnes and Field’s manners, which were often cynical.  Of the artist, Moscheles remarks that while his touch was admirable and his legato entrancing, his playing lacked spirit and accent, light and shadow, and depth of feeling.  M. Marmontel was not far wrong when, before having heard Field, he regarded him as the forerunner of Chopin, as a Chopin without his passion, sombre reveries, heart-throes, and morbidity.  The opinions which the two artists had of each other and the degree of