Harry Field

Field, Harry

Harry (Marshall) Field. Pianist, teacher; b Aurora, Canada West (Ontario), 14 Dec 1862, d Hampstead, London, 1945? He was educated at Upper Canada College, Toronto, and studied the piano, first with his mother, a skilled pianist descended from the family of the playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and then with Theodore Martens and Waugh Lauder. He continued his studies 1884-8 at the Leipzig Cons under Carl Reinecke, the Liszt pupil Martin Krause, and in 1887 also in Frankfurt under Hans von Bülow. In 1887 he made his piano debut in Leipzig, in 1888 he became a teacher at the Toronto College of Music, and later he taught at several girls' schools. In 1896 he went to Leipzig as Krause's assistant. He returned to Canada in 1900, opening a teaching studio in Toronto and heading the piano department at the Peterborough Conservatory. Moving to Dresden in 1906, Field appeared as soloist with orchestras in Germany and Scandinavia and gave recitals in Dresden, Leipzig, and elsewhere. During World War I Field was interned at Ruhleben near Berlin (along with Ernest MacMillan who later recalled that Field had performed the Liszt E-flat Concerto 'with fine vigour and gusto' in MacMillan's first orchestral concert). In 1916 he was able to leave for England, where he became the head of the piano dept of the Hampstead School of Music, retaining the post until his death. He specialized in the music of Chopin and Liszt and wrote a group of six Klavierstücke (Jost, Leipzig), said to be in the style of Chopin. His Canadian pupils included Gladys Seward of Peterborough and Alice Roger Collins.