Haydn: Complete Keyboard Music, Vol. 13 - Artur Balsam

Volume XIII JOSEPH HAYDN (1732-1809) liner notes

A highly regarded pianist named Therese Jansen was the fortunate person receiving the dedication of Haydn's final trio of keyboard sonatas, The first five notes of the first movement of Sonata number 60 in C serve as the basis for the entire movement. The first of many miracles occur in the development section, when this motif appears in octaves in the bass with the sustaining pedal pressed down. It is heard later, in the treble, with far-off bells tinkling a syncopated descant -- once more with sustaining pedal down....Sonata number 61 in D is first of all anything but a work of lesser scale than the preceding sonata, despite its brevity. The opening Andante unfolds as a concentrated final distillate of many things, including the jaunty swagger of many earlier sonatas, here mellowed and owning maturity's dignity in its quietly happy course...Although Sonata number 62 in E flat was one of three written for Therese Jansen (either the first, which would make it number 60, or the last of the series, as it is generally published and recorded here) is not clear. This sonata was also published without Haydn's permission and dedicated to another excellent pianist, Magdalena von Kurzböck. The music is at once a summation of what had gone before and a clear-eyed look into the nineteenth century.