Hi,

Here's my performance of one of the latest and greatest Haydn sonatas, written in the 1790s. Definitely one of my personal favorites. Of the "Big Three" classic-period composers, Haydn is probably the one I relate to most. Comments welcome.

Thanks,

Joe

Haydn - Sonata in C major, Hob. XVI Nr. 50, I: Allegro
Haydn - Sonata in C major, Hob. XVI Nr. 50, II: Adagio
Haydn - Sonata in C major, Hob. XVI Nr. 50, III: Allegro molto

Hi Joe,

I think you did a wonderful job in this charming sonata. I didn't know it; thanks for calling our attention to it. Your piano sounds great as well.

As a Horowitz buff the single thing I'd recommend for you is to practice your rhythmic evenness the best you can. Listening to pianists that had this feature helps a lot.

However we're talking a deep structure issue here. Overall your rendition is excellent.

Best,
Alexandre

This is up, Joe. Sounded nice!

Thanks, Alexandre!



Good point. I think a few parts would have profited from more slow practice, since I got this sonata back rather quickly. Haydn's layers of different rhythms can be difficult to bring off. Not sure I would agree that rhythmic precision is one of Horowitz's particular strengths though...



Not sure what you mean here...can you elaborate?

Thanks again for listening!

Thanks, Monica!

An very enjoyable performance of one of the deservedly famous Haydn's sonatas. On a general level, my only nag is that it maybe lacks a bit of humour, which is so distinctive in much of the Haydnian output. On a more specific level, there are a couple of things I found strange. The first one is in the first movement at bars 51-52 and 148-149 , when you sort of slur the forte statements instead of, so to speak, uttering them loud and clear. The second one is about the rests in the third movement, as in bar 5 and 7, which you play for a longer value, and crumbling the phrase as a result. Haydn clearly wants some rests to last more than their value, but in those cases he puts a fermata sign. Deceitfully easy that movement!

Thanks very much for listening and for the compliment, Alfonzo.



Yes, sometimes I think my playing can be tight, something I'm trying to work on. Recently, I've been doing a lot of the Cortot exercises, which I hadn't done in years, and I've found that has helped a lot.



An interesting point. I wasn't satisfied with those measures either; for some reason I found it easy to rush, perhaps in part because they're at the end of the exposition and recapitulation when I'm a bit tired and nervous I think in retrospect, as you imply, it would be to good to pronounce them more forcefully and accent them but not exactly legato, more of a non-legato, and this would also help prevent rushing.



Right. Good point.

Thanks again for the comments, Alfonzo.