Dan Schmidt wrote:

>I love all of Haydn except for the piano sonatas!  I've listened to
>all the symphonies and piano trios, 15 discs worth of quartets, and a
>fistful of oratorios, all wonderful, but most of his solo piano works
>I find deadly boring.  I have a few CDs of Jando on Naxos.  What am I
>missing?  Any suggestions for how to listen differently?  Should I
>pick up some Brendel?  I like his Schubert.

It might interest you to know that even as Haydn's greatest fan the
piano sonatas were what I came to appreciate last (apart from his opera).
In fact sonatas as a genre were something I came to rather late.

Schubert's sonatas are quite different from Haydn's, Beethoven's and
Mozart's in my view.  So if you like his it does not necessarily follow
that you will like those of the other three.  Schubert's best sonatas were
written late in his life when he knew he was dying and therefore exhibit a
certain pathos which you will not find in the works of the ever optimistic
Haydn.

I am, unfortunately, in disagreement with Donald on how these works sound
best.  I believe that a period performance really does suit them and brings
them too life.  Unfortunately there are precious few such discs around and
none of the later sonatas that I know of.  A lot of the earlier sonatas
were not written for piano anyway.

You don't say which Jando discs you have.  He recorded the later works on
vols 1,2 and 3.  If you have these then maybe you just don't like Jando's
style.  I love it, but some might say it is affected.

Brendel is quite different, smoother, slicker, sugary are adjectives I'd
use.  You could try Julia Cload if you can find a disc secondhand.  Her's
are very fine performances.  Midway in style between Brendel and Jando but
different.  If you get my meaning.

What to listen for? You could listen to see what the two hands are doing at
any one moment.  Or you could analyse the sonata structure etc.  Haydn does
all sorts of unusual things to experiment with the sound of the pianoforte
like longish gaps between notes.  But I reckon that such considerations
should come last.  An overall feel for the emotional of the music should
come first.

In other words; do you like the sound of it? If not take the advice that
others have given me re Mozart; leave it alone for a while and come back
to it later.

Bob Draper
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