# Haydn's Piano Sonatas



## Guest (Feb 14, 2013)

This composer wrote an astonishing 62 piano sonatas. This final one shows Haydn's incredible dexterity and harmonic invention, particularly in the second subject of the first movement where he moves to ever more remote territory. The last sonatas were written after Mozart's death and saw Haydn at the height of his considerable powers. The other movements in this sonata are absolutely wonderful and I recommend an exploration of this body of work by Haydn for all serious music-lovers.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

My first encounter with Op. 62 was with Malcom Bilson on a fortepiano. It gives the piece a more fragile sound, but it shows how Haydn is pushing the instrument to its expressive limits. 

But personally, between the two, I prefer Richter here. All in all, I can't get around my feeling that fortepianos sound like a piano with a head cold.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Manxfeeder said:


> My first encounter with Op. 62 was with Malcom Bilson on a fortepiano. It gives the piece a more fragile sound, but it shows how Haydn is pushing the instrument to its expressive limits.
> 
> But personally, between the two, I prefer Richter here. All in all, I can't get around my feeling that fortepianos sound like a piano with a head cold.


The difference is really in interpretations available. Those 1790s Viennese pianos' response is different from the later iron framed critturs. The pianist has to work with what he has. Some of the results work very well.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I've always been amazed how good Horowitz is in the Haydn sonatas (the ones he recorded anyway). He uses fine gradations of volume very effectively.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

I'm working my way through some mid 1970s Gilbert Kalish recordings on Nonesuch. So far the No. 62 is not among them but I am finding them highly rewarding. This was a bit before the idea of HIP performance took off, so they may sound a bit romanticized to more modern ears. They have reinforced the idea that Beethoven learned much more from Haydn than he would ever admit.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

There may be some Sokolov Haydn on YouTube. His interpretations are subtly different in small, remarkably and effectively different in large.


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

Hi, my name is Vaneyes, and I've been an addict of Haydn Piano Sonatas for sometime. I don't see myself changing ways. :lol:

Schiff, Pletnev, Sudbin, Brendel, Pogorelich, Richter, Gould, Hamelin, Horowitz, Xiao-Mei, Bavouzet, and building.


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## Guest (Feb 15, 2013)

Hilltroll72 said:


> The difference is really in interpretations available. Those 1790s Viennese pianos' response is different from the later iron framed critturs. The pianist has to work with what he has. Some of the results work very well.


Absolutely agree and I saw many of those composers' own pianos in various museums in Vienna and also in Brussels, at the Period Instruments Museum. I adore the fortepiano myself, and the early pianofortes too - those of Chopin et al.


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## Guest (Feb 15, 2013)

Vaneyes said:


> Hi, my name is Vaneyes, and I've been an addict of Haydn Piano Sonatas for sometime. I don't see myself changing ways. :lol:
> 
> Schiff, Pletnev, Sudbin, Brendel, Pogorelich, Richter, Gould, Hamelin, Horowitz, Xiao-Mei, Bavouzet, and building.


Well, of course, Schiff and Richter and Brendel. Unbeatable IMO. I don't know the Chinese pianist you mention. I'm glad you love these works as I do - filled with joy, humour, tenderness and lyricism as they all are. Who ever said classical composers used restraint and didn't indulge their own feelings!!? See me at recess for detention!!:lol:

Haydn had great depth as both a Mensch und Komponist. Recently I researched the composer for one of my 90 minute sessions called "Music in Vienna" and it was a revelation. The Robbins Landons (HC and Crista) have done a lot of work on Haydn and they're probably both the major reason he hasn't fallen into obscurity, overshadowed as he often is by both Mozart and Beethoven.

Somebody on an earlier comment mentioned Beethoven's indebtedness to Haydn (who called him the "great Mogul"). Beethoven treated the old man dreadfully, with huge disdain, and he was getting secret counterpoint lessons behind Haydn's back when the latter was thinking he was Beethoven's pedagogue. LvB could indulge in some 'sharp practice' and when Haydn sent a score back to Bonn, showing what he had learned in Vienna (a favour - so that Beethoven could secure an appointment there) it was returned with a note: "I've already seen this: has he learned nothing in Vienna?". Beethoven pretended to Haydn that he had written this work under his tutelage when, in fact, it was written before Beethoven ever left Bonn for Vienna, some years before. And he only visited Haydn once as he lay on his death bed in Gumpendorf, Wien, thinking often about the great Komponist he had been teaching and yearning for news of him!!

(But, like Haydn, I adore LvB - all is forgiven!)


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