The first movement of what would be John Field's final piano concerto, No. 7 in C minor, was first performed by the composer in March 1822. Field was traveling between St. Petersburg and Moscow at the time, making his living primarily by teaching and concertizing. It was the beginning of a period of ill-health, depression, and very little composition that lasted eight years. He did not complete the concerto until 1831, around the time he made his last visit to England. Field premiered the work in Paris on Christmas Day 1832. Not having written such a large work in some time, he was worried about his and its reception, and with some justification, because the audience was much the same as had heard Chopin's Paris debut the year before. The critics did not think the concerto was his best work, but the audience enjoyed Field's playing enough to ask him to repeat a portion of the concerto. In this concerto, as in his others, Field borrows from his other works. The first movement, Allegro moderato, begins with the tympani and woodwinds quietly introducing a theme that came from a previously written albumleaf, followed by a vigorous secondary theme on the violin. Neither theme is really developed, as two somewhat unrelated interludes are used instead of a development section before the recapitulation and coda. The first interlude, a slow one in G major, is what was eventually published as his Nocturne No. 12, but it is unclear which came first, the nocturne or the concerto. The second interlude, in A major, returns to the movement's original tempo, but has a syncopated piano supported by strings, woodwinds, and horn. The second movement is a rondo, with which Field always ended his concertos. However, there is more of a partnership between the soloist and orchestra in this one than in the others. In this instance, the rondo theme feels almost like a Viennese waltz and was particularly admired by Schumann. In contrast to the facileness of the theme, the intervening passages show how imaginative Field could be. There are a couple of interesting episodes in this movement as well: a passage for strings featuring pregnant pauses and a brief adagio passage right before the coda featuring a small trumpet fanfare. Also, in contrast to the C minor opening movement, this one is in the happier C major.

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