Light and Shade: Haydn's Piano Music

Details

Tom Foster full profile / Solo piano / 1 musician

Full program notes

PROGRAM

Variations in C major, Hob. XVII:5
Sonata in E flat major, Hob. XVI:49
I. Allegro
II. Adagio e cantabile
III. Finale: Tempo di Minuet

– intermission –

Variations in F minor, Hob. XVII:6
Fantasia in C major, Hob. XVII:4

NOTES

Variations in C major: A lively set of variations on an original theme.

Sonata in E flat major: Maurice Hinson writes, "the full glory of the Viennese Classical style is apparent in this work."

Variations in F minor: One of Haydn most celebrated works, this is a set of double variations, with two themes—one in F minor followed by one in F major, with a remarkable coda described by James Leonard as an "enormous and heartrending coda, a rhapsodic outpouring of grief and rage that ultimately collapses into a quiet, final leave-taking at the end."

Fantasia in C major: Based, on the Austrian folk song "D’ Bäurin hat d'Katz verlor'n" ("The farmer's wife has lost her cat"). Haydn wrote to the publisher, "In a moment of great good humor I have completed a new Capriccio for fortepiano, whose taste, singularity and special construction cannot fail to receive approval from connoisseurs and amateurs alike. In a single movement, rather long, but not particularly difficult." It is, in fact, very difficult, featuing zany virtuosity and orchestra effects.

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