Zeev Schor writes:

>I must confess that until now, I have paid homage mostly to piano
>sonatas composed by Schubert and Beethoven and to a lesser degree,
>Mozart.  Haydn's Piano Sonatas, were (to my shame) neglected by me,
>and I have planned for a long time to correct it.

Zeev should not be apologetic of having neglected the Haydn piano sonatas.
In my opinion, they qualify as some of the most neglected of all piano
music.  as winess the few available Haydn recordings as compared the
voluminous Beethovens, Schuberts, Mozarts, Liszts, even Brahms.

I fell in love with this music in the late 1980's when (if I recall) all
of Haydn's piano sonatas were broadcast by the late and greatly lamented
Station WBIB in Chicago.  I made VHS recordings of over thirty.  and
recently trnscribed them all to CD format.  I am amazed at the quality
of the recordings I nave and can now ppreciate the full glory of this
music.

A fair sample of the sixty odd piano sonatas that Haydn wrote, first for
the harpsichord then for the pianoforte belong in every music lover's
CD collection.  Don Ahatz is providing all of us list members with a
wonderful opportunity to learn about this music and to give us intelligent
choices for adding it to our collections.  I am delighted that he has
decided to review the entire opus rather than selected sonatas.  I would
hate to have to make the choice as to what he should select to review,
they are all just wonderful pieces of music.

William C. Valles
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