Joseph HAYDN 1732 — 1809

I can remember as a teenager sightreading through the Haydn piano sonatas. This was pleasant enough, especially as they were technically sufficiently easy for me to be able get quite a lot of the notes right at a reasonable speed — at least in the slow movements. But reading them once or twice seemed to me then to be what they merited, and I put them aside to return to the serious business of learning Mozart and Chopin and Bartok.

Twenty years later I came across Peter Yates's remarkable book An Amateur at the Keyboard (George Allen & Unwin, 1964). Reading this book was a life-changing experience. Re-reading it now I feel that it is as pertinent as ever: I would recommend it to anyone interested in music, but especially to those to whom it is particularly addressed — amateur pianists. Peter Yates's wide-ranging enthusiasms are infectious, and one effect on me was to make me look seriously at a lot of great music which I had previously ignored, for example the keyboard works of Francois Couperin and of CPE Bach (incidentally necessitating buying a harpsichord and a clavichord!). And of course another effect was to reintroduce me to Haydn's piano music, and this time to start to appreciate its subtlety and depth.

Since then I have become totally devoted to his sonatas, and so you may be surprised not to find any here; but of course they are easy to find elsewhere. Among Haydn's lesser known solo keyboard works are many sets of variations. I have a Polish collection of 14 of these assembled and edited by Zbieniew Sliwinski (PWA, 1976) which range from the tecnically simple but charming C major set (HobXVII/15), which you will find here, to the familiar concert work in F minor (Hob XVII/6). But there are others. I found the D major set also included on this page among set pieces for a Trinity College exam, and I have several others from similar sources. There is a very full discussion of what is known about the manuscripts and published editions of Haydn's keyboard music and works ascribed to him in A Peter Brown's treatise Joseph Haydn's Keyboard Music (Indiana University Press, 1986)

The other major source of Haydn keyboard music for me has been the Piano Trios: 31 of these are included in the Peters Edition. You may be lucky enough to have violinist and cellist friends to play them with you. But many of these trios, especially the earlier ones, belong to the tradition of "Sonatas for pianoforte with accompaniment for violin and thorough bass", so that the string parts are largely optional. I have found it very gratifying to play the piano parts, with minor adjustments, as piano solos: potentially we have here a large further set of Haydn "Sonatas", and of course the musical content is of similar stature to the Sonatas written as solo works. One of these arrangements is included here, and I have 5 more ready to add to the collection. Perhaps eventually you will find all 31 here...

Comments are welcome. Please write to williamww@aol.com    Last modified: 02 June 2009.