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”.