Not one but two sets of Field nocturnes have come my way this month (Ewa Pobłocka’s period-instrument set is reviewed on page 68). That in itself is pretty remarkable, for these are, even today, more written about than recorded. The Korean-American pianist Elizabeth Joy Roe has previously recorded Britten and Barber concertos for Decca (5/15) but this is her first solo outing on the label. She writes passionately about the music in her booklet-note and has clearly done her research in terms of editions.

The danger of a disc devoted to the 18 Nocturnes is that, unlike Chopin’s with their huge gamut of expression, Field’s are altogether simpler in demeanour and so their range is inherently narrower. What they don’t need is spacious tempi, which are the kiss of death, and one to which pianists such as Miceál O’Rourke succumb too readily. Roe is anxious at every turn to make poetry from this music, and she has a suitably haloed sound. Everything is very thoughtful, and she can be delicate, too, in response to Field’s filigree flights of fancy.

But, for all her refinement, she is simply too slow too much of the time. The first Nocturne, H24 in E flat major, sets the scene (Pobłocka by comparison finds a much greater sense of drama here). And again, in the second, H25 in C minor, it seems captivated by its own beauty, fatally lacking a sense of flow. It’s a pity, for Roe clearly feels strongly about this music. But how much easier she would have made life if, for instance, in the miraculously lovely B flat major, H37, she’d allowed a little more ebb and flow, as Benjamin Frith does so effectively. Or the C major, H45, which sounds too self-consciously ‘poetic’; notch the tempo up just a little and it becomes easier to maintain the melodic line and makes the octave-leap Gs less dominant, as Frith demonstrates. The E major Nocturne, H13, comes as a relief, Roe enjoying its sense of play, and she also finds much to bring out of the extended rhapsodic C major, H60. But overall I was left with a sense that there’s much more to be brought out of this music than we find here.