Piano Sonata No.38 in F major (H.XVI/23)

Until he was well into in his 50s Haydn’s keyboard sonatas were distributed, like most of the music he had written up to that point, in manuscript rather than printed copies. The first works he actually edited for publication were six sonatas (Nos.36 – 41) composed in 1773 and printed in Vienna with a dedication to his employer, Prince Nicolaus Esterházy, the following year. If he wrote them with that in mind – in the hope of making a profit from sales to a wider public – it could explain why those six works are so much more popular in style than might have been expected from recent compositions like the disturbingly serious Sonata No.33 in C minor.

Given, however, such a successful example as the Sonata No.38 in F, the third in the new series, no one would have been likely to complain. The first movement (to which Haydn gave no tempo heading, incidentally) might seem to us over-elaborate in rococo decoration but that is what Haydn’s contemporaries wanted and, in fact, it is part of its charm. The passage in the minor in the middle of the development section brings a timely change in mood, just as the Scarlatti-style arpeggios that arise from it add virtuoso brilliance to the colouring. The prolonged left-hand trill leading into the coda is another striking feature.

The same sort of decorative figuration is applied to the Adagio but this is not the conventional siciliano the melody introduced in the opening bars suggests it might be. With its F minor tonality, its rocking barcarolle-like left hand and its sensitively expressive changes of harmony it seems to anticipate, however distantly, nocturnal Chopin. The Presto last movement, on the other hand, is illuminated by the bright daylight of F major and a playful main theme so captivating that Haydn clearly felt that there was no need to introduce another one.