Haydn: Complete Keyboard Music, Vol. 11 - Artur Balsam, piano

Volume XI JOSEPH HAYDN KEYBOARD WORKS liner notes

The opening Presto of Sonata number 53 in E minor Haydn's last sonata in a minor key could be a tale told at night, of shadowy, flitting ghosts (the marcato theme in E minor) momentarily dispersed by the calm moonlit beauty of the second theme in G major. The spirits continue their ghostly fittings in the development section. Even when the moon must needs reappear (in the recapitulation), it shines only sporadically through the clouds of E minor. The slow movement, Adagio, is fantasia-like in character, and gives the impression of a written-down improvisation. The last movement, Vivace molto, is a rondo based on two themes, one in minor the other in major. ...Sonata number 54 in G is the first of three sonatas composed for and dedicated to Princess Marie Esterhazy and printed in 1784. Those who would require that Haydn invariably storm the heavens or shake the earth with innovations every time he set pen to paper, would deny themselves the pleasure of the master varying a simple, lady theme with sparkling imagination in the opening Alle innocente. The closing Presto dashes along with the saucy insouciance of a mountain goat...Sonata number 56 in D, the last of the three dedicated to the Princess Esterházy, opens with an Andante con espressione, best described as music for a pantomime.