20 C minor

Sonata in C minor HXV1: 20 (1771)

Moderato

Andante con moto

Finale: Allegro

One of the most interesting of Haydn’s keyboard sonatas, the present work in C minor was written during his brief “Sturm und Drang” period, at much the same time as the 44th and 45th Symphonies and the Quartets Op.17 No.4    and Op.20 No.3. It is also thought to be the earliest of the sonatas written not for harpsichord but for fortepiano, as the dynamic requirements in the exposition of the first movement (where there are two patches of alternations between forte and piano on a note by note basis) seem to confirm.

Although the tempo marking is an unhurried Moderato, there is a sense of unease in the opening theme, its thirds and sixths in dotted rhythms in the right hand urged on by the left. The transition to the second subject – made by way of spontaneously generated busy figuration, the note-by-note colour contrasts in exposed lines and a short Adagio cadenza pausing on a dominant ninth – is surely unique in Haydn’s music. In the relative major, the new theme itself is scarcely less surprising in its insistence on repetitions of snatched five-note downward runs. The development, though it begins with the first subject, is particularly concerned with the dramatic potential of the second before an orderly recapitulation recalls it, again after an Adagio cadenza, in C minor.           

A melodiously expressive movement in A flat major, the Andante con moto is particularly sensitive in the several passages where the regular quavers in the left hand are set against a gently but consistently syncopated melodic line in the right. The closing Allegro recalls not only the five-note downward runs form the first movement but also the syncopated textures of the second before it is carried away by a growing urge to indulge in keyboard brilliance characterised at its height by a Scarlatti-like virtuoso    crossing of hands.