Unlike Mozart or Beethoven, Haydn was not an accomplished keyboard player.  He was, however, a playful yet methodical inventor—classical music’s Benjamin Franklin, and he used his keyboard sonatas as a testing ground for experimentation.  In the Hoboken catalogue of Haydn’s works, all of the keyboard sonatas are listed as Hob. XVI.  With any given sonata, the Arabic number that appears after XVI indicates its chronological order of composition.  Out of approximately 52, about half of the sonatas are wonderful pieces, witty, unpredictable in their range of expression, and great fun to play.

The early sonatas, sonatinas really, were composed for harpsichord, and are useful teaching pieces, whose rhythmic energy is more interesting than their melodic content.  Some of the middle group of the 52 contain inspired individual movements along with others that go on longer than their material warrants.  But in others, such as the 5 in minor keys, Haydn’s experiments with movement order, unusual formal structures, and striking juxtapositions of mood create successfully integrated works.  The last 10 or so sonatas are the solidest and most characteristic.  These are the pieces that are most often heard in concert and recorded performances.  Three of the 5 played by the young NH pianist Chad R. Bowles in his début recording come from this group.

He also includes the Sonata in E, Hob. XVI/31, one of the quirky, less often heard “middle” sonatas.  It’s a favorite of mine, and I listened to it first.  Bowles’ precise rendering of the 1st movement, a free-flowing, moderately paced fantasia, lacks the flexibility that would help it to linger and breathe in some places and surge in others.  However, in the 2nd movement, an intense Allegretto in e composed in a “learned” Bachian style, he adopts exactly the sort of imaginative rubato and expressive pedaling that would have well served the 1st movement as beauifully as it does the 2nd.  The emfindsamer stil (sensitive style) associated with C.P.E. Bach, whose keyboard music was by far the greatest influence on Haydn’s sonatas, demands this kind of approach.  The 3rd movement is a rollicking presto (an abrupt contrast with the 2nd) that Bowles plays well, but a bit too heavily.

Next, I listened with pleasure to the late sonatas in Eb and in C, 2 masterpieces.  I have a few quibbles with Bowles’ interpretation of the Eb, but the C seems to me to be a perfectly judged performance.  In general, Bowles’ steady, buoyant rhythm is enlivened by his response to the nuances of Haydn’s articulation.  He has fast fingers, makes sense of the ornaments, and “gets” Haydn’s jokes, although I’m not sure about his claim that the 3rd movement of the C sonata pokes fun at performers’ memory slips, even though it sounds that way, since memorization wasn’t standard practice until the middle of the 19th century.  (I also question a note that he plays in measure 11 of the Eb sonata’s 1st movement.  According to the Wiener Urtext Edition, the second Eb should be an F).   

His performance of the opening movement of the Eb sonata is very lively and played with a somewhat unvaried, bright sound.  This movement has the potential for more spaciousness than Bowles allows, and there are opportunities to lighten the sound that he doesn’t take, such as in the repetition of phrases, and in Alberti bass accompaniments.  Maybe this is a “young man’s Haydn”?  Happily, he lets the 2nd movement, the most extended and expressive slow movement in any of the sonatas, unfold unhurriedly with playing of great care and delicacy.

The other sonatas included here are a diverting 2-movement work in Bb, one of 3 sonatas that Haydn transcribed for string trio, and the stern, vehement b, a bracing example of Haydn’s use of sturm und drang (storm and stress) atmosphere in his “middle” sonatas.  In Bowles’ performance, the minuet, here functioning as the sonata’s slow movement, is played with touching simplicity, and the outer movements are brilliantly controlled.

This is a well chosen selection of Haydn’s sonatas.  Bowles’ enthusiastic playing and clear recorded sound make it a success.  Recommended.          

© 2009 Paul Orgel