The year 1812 was significant in the development of the early nocturne. It was the year in which John Field published his 1erNocturne, the first in a series of similar works which led directly to the mature nocturnes of Chopin. Hitherto Field's role as the inventor of the genre has been largely unquestioned, and it has been assumed that Chopin simply inherited a well-established formula; but the early history of the nocturne is more complex than it might at first appear. The keyboard style normally associated with the genre had already been established in France by the end of the eighteenth century, so that its use by Field in 1812 was nothing new. It is in any case questionable whether this style should be so closely identified with the genre, since many subsequent nocturnes fail to use it. It would also be a mistake to imagine that the term ‘nocturne’ was quickly accepted to mean a solo piano piece with a particular character. Jeffrey Kallberg has pointed out that the term was only defined in this way from the 1830s onwards.

In the meantime, a number of works in ‘nocturne style’ had appeared with other titles. Perhaps most striking of all in the early history of the nocturne is how slowly the genre developed. Apart from some of Field's pupils and acquaintances it seems that very few composers had any immediate inclination to follow his example, and it was only in the 1830s that nocturnes began to appear in any number.