Haydn: Complete Keyboard Music, Vol. 09 - Artur Balsam

Haydn Keyboard Music Volume 9 liner notes

Dating from 1776, Sonata number 45, in A major, is the fourth in a set of six (numbers 42-47) completed in that year. Though composed for the keyboard, the orchestral style of the first two movements is unmistakable: The tutti, the horn calls, solos for perhaps an oboe with string accompaniment, string tremolos and long passages played in octaves, all bespeak the orchestra...The opening Moderato of Sonata number 46, in E major, might be described as one which "has all the right ingredients," even though it moves us less than other works by Haydn...The first movement, Allegro moderato, of Sonata number 47, in B minor, is made up of wry bitterness and whimsical gloom, in about equal parts. The rhythm of the left hand in the first measure vies for attention with a dotted three-note figure in the right. The development section is based on both rhythmic elements, and at its climax we suddenly find ourselves almost physically propelled into the recapitulation...Sonata number 48, in C major, is the first of a set of sonatas (numbers 48-52 and the C minor sonata, number 33, composed in 1771) dedicated to Franziska and Marianne von Auenbrugger, expert amateur pianists and members of the Viennese musical society in which Haydn moved.