Piano Sonata No.39 in D major H.XVI/24 (1773)

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.39 in D, the fourth in the new series, no one would have been likely to complain. Although there is only one main theme in the first movement, since the opening idea is is re-introduced in a slightly varied form as the second subject, there are two distinct sorts of material – the two hands in rhythmic unsion in the quavers of the main theme and, as a frequent Scarlatti-like diversion, staccato crotchets in the left alternating with semiquaver arpeggios in the right. It is these contrasting textures which, even more than the harmonic variety, are the main source of interest throughout the development and recapitulation.

The Adagio is a fascinating anticipation of a Mozart slow movement in aria style. It begins with a poignant melody in D minor, palpitating with rhythmic hesitaitions, and includes a lovely middle section in the relative major its line elaborately decorated with expressive vocal figuration. The harmonic uncertainty that arises, with some surprisingly harsh dissonances, after the return of the first theme remains unresolved, however. After a brief cadenza ending in the dominant, the tempo changes to Presto for a briskly animated scherzo Finale