Track by Track is a dynamic way for an artist to guide you through one of their albums. Exclusive audio commentary features personal insights and invaluable context, bringing you closer than ever to the music. “I kind of knew Field’s name, but I didn't know his music,” Alice Sara Ott tells Apple Music Classical. “But I came across some of the recordings of the Nocturnes and just fell in love. It’s now been two or three years that I’ve been intensely playing these pieces.” The early 19th-century Irish composer John Field is widely accepted to have invented the Nocturne, a short free-form piece characterized by a long, intricate melody above a flowing accompaniment. Chopin heard them as a young man, and was inspired to compose his own set of Nocturnes, among the best-loved of all his piano works. Ott’s album of John Field’s music is beautifully and insightfully performed, and intimately captured by Deutsche Grammophon’s engineers in enticing detail—and her passion for this music comes across from first note to last. Back in February 2025, when this album was released, Ott explained the appeal of John Field’s music to Apple Music Classical: “Almost every Nocturne starts very innocently, very naively. Then Field creates this magic in half a bar of music, where you sense this profound melancholia. It’s almost like you’re walking by a window, and then beyond the glass you sense an emotion that can be sadness or melancholy, but you cannot grasp the whole complexity and the depth of it. It lasts just a half bar, and then the sun comes out again.” Now listen, as Alice Sara Ott opens up the world of John Field with her insightful and fascinating commentaries on each Nocturne.