Haydn: Complete Keyboard Music, Vol. 08 - Artur Balsam

Haydn Keyboard Volume 8 Liner Notes

Sonata number 41, in A major, is the last of six sonatas Haydn dedicated to his employer, Prince Nicholas Esterházy...Sonata number 42, in G major, is the first of a set of six sonatas (numbers 42-47) which Haydn is thought to have finished about 1776. In the first movement Haydn seems to have adopted a deliberately lightweight style; he moves his themes quickly, mostly by using an Alberti bass to accompany them...he opening Allegro moderato of Sonata number 43, in E flat major, is a cheerful movement, seemingly more intent on admiring the earth and its pleasures than on storming the heavens.. In the very first bars of the Sonata number 44, in F major, Haydn sets a mood of posed delicacy, which is unique in his keyboard sonatas. Here is Haydn the subtle colorist, endlessly inventive in a movement varied and unusual in its tonal palette: The little horn motif which announces the first theme, for example, is echoed an octave lower three measures later.