Customer Reviews

Haydn: Piano Sonatas

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Andras Schiff is a performer I have long admired, and this disc doesn't disapppoint. Whereas other pianists like Alfred Brendel may take a more dramatic approach to Haydn's wonderful piano sonatas, I feel Schiff's delicacy and spirituality (especially in the slow movements) reaches more deeply into this composer's music. These are generously filled discs and I do hope that Schiff and Teldec will consider embarking on a complete cycle of Haydn's sonatas.

These are highly desirable performances of the tremendous and still little known Haydn piano sonatas. Schiff is a master pianist who thinks about what his playing will sound like when transferred to digital format: the result is a huge plus for the consumer. Most available recorded performanceas of the sonatas are good, some very fine. My problem with many of these recordings, such as on Naxos or Decca, is that Haydn's musical make-up was rather boisterous, and as recordings of the sonatas reveal, this plays the devil with the inner voices of his keyboard works. Boomy congested sound makes for a pointless and very frustrating exercise. If you can handle it the Naxos recordings are very reasonably priced, as are the better recorded Decca with McCabe. But those large pianos present a myriad of sound issues. In this case Schiff is generally able to keep his sound balances from turning tubby, and the music and the listener benefits dramatically.
Another cleaner version of the sonatas - Leif Ove Andsnes. A performance very Scandanvian if you wish in its clarity, elegance and purity. Haydn's gusto and rude humor are transformed into a very Beethoven like power, all done in an ultra moderne approach. A must hear and also the readings are extremely pleasurable; especially so after the somewhat congested music-making/recordings often encountered in these piano sonatas.
Again - this just suggests Haydn has far more range than most give him credit for. The music itself? Wonderful!

Thanks to three prior reviews here, I decided to purchase this CD set. I have listened to many different recorded interpretations of these late Haydn piano sonatas over several decades; this set by Andras Schiff is the most rewarding in my listening experiece. His performance exemplifies the qualities of clarity and balance so central to the classical period. At the same time his sense of Haydn's wit, humour and invention is pure refreshment.

Andras Schiff is quoted as saying, "Silence is the beginning and end of all music...".
The way his musical notes sometimes appear out of dead silence is like the purest light appearing out of the darkest void. A kind of revelation!

Haydn's beautiful and sophisticated composition, Shiff's inspired enunciation, and Teldec's quality recording are in perfect concert here.

Andras Schiff is one of the most venerated classical pianists living today that has contributed benchmark interpretations of Bach, Mozart, Haydn and Schubert.

Schiff retains a special admiration and love for Haydn, as the album notes and his more recent DVD recording of live performances reveal; he appreciates the true genius of Haydn which modern listeners very often neglect - his witty humour and his simplicity of elegance.

During my earlier days of forays into the classical piano lexicon, I've been plagued as well by the ubiquitous yet ill-informed opinion that Mozart was the greater genius of the two. The impression that Mozart had great wit, evident through his correspondences, might have partially been responsible. However, the contrary was the case in his music, notably his piano sonatas vis-a-vis Haydn; Mozart usually favoured cantabile lines to "programmtic wit", while Haydn was adept in bringing wit and surprise elements to the highest order in the Classical Idiom.

It is on this same note that Schiff approaches and appreciates the genius of Haydn. The album provides an exposition by Schiff and scholarly, comprehensive but never-too-dry work-by-work commentaries by Misha Donat. While I have utmost respect for Schiff's Haydn, a view largely attributed to the recent excellent DVD commentary he made on Haydn's sonatas, I could not agree unanimously with all his interpretations of the sonatas found on this album.

My favourite sonata, the charming E flat major, was in my opinion, disappointing, compared to the others found on the album. A case in point would be the tempo for the haunting beauty of the Adagio movement being somewhat way too fast (and tempestuous) in the stirring middle section.

I wasn't quite won over by Schiff's interpretation of the C major sonata, a piece that I play, in the first movement, as I was in the other Haydn works recorded by Schiff.

Schiff held full sway in the Fantasia in C major, a work which is probably his favourite and which he fought to champion, playing with such erudition and surprise (as in the DVD) that is peerless.

Haydn's crowning achievement in his piano sonata in E flat Major found a well-deserving accolade with Schiff, an interpretation that perhaps set universal standards for this great work that ranks side by side with Brendel's.

Another disappointment was that the compilation did not include the great f minor variations, which could be found in the DVD recording, where Schiff played with the almost utmost perfection.

Overall, I would say this is quite an indispensable recording of Haydn's greatest works, though I would think not as indispensable as say, Brautigam's definitive recording of the last Haydn sonatas on the period fortepiano.

These are great! Wonderful music. I take exception to T. Boylan's 3 star review that damns this recording with faint praise. He says: "They (Haydn piano sonatas) are simple music really designed for students and relaxing music." I don't think that applies to works like the C minor sonata Hob.XVI: 20 or the one in E flat Hob XVI: 49. These are obviously concert pieces, not taffelmusik. Indeed, Haydn is amazingly succinct while running thru all sorts of musical and harmonic gymnastics. And he's always experimenting. He may not be as spontaneous as Mozart or full of pathos like Beethoven, but he is witty in the extreme....a difficult notion to achieve in music.

And speaking of Beethoven, Boylan also states: "When interpreted with a "Beethoven-like" quality they really can be destroyed." Of course Haydn is writing sonatas at the same time Beethoven is. He was a teacher of Beethoven. And "Beethoven-like" passages can even be found in Mozart (try the Fantasy in C minor, K475). Beethoven (nor Haydn nor Mozart) do not exist in a vacuum.

These concerns are simply not worth bothering with. Schiff's interps are justified and delightful. They hold up to Brendel's (but the price of those! Yikes!) and are interesting to compare. Schiff is more playful but never inappropriate. Well worth having!

Other reviewers here have pointed out the many fine points of this exceptional 2cd set of Haydn sonatas and I agree with most of them. One different point of focus is the music itself: Haydn wrote quite a few outstanding piano sonatas, many of which I think are just as rewarding as Mozart's. It takes a pianist like Andras Schiff to make a convincing case for this argument. There is sensitivity and plenty of reflection along with lots of brio here. And never mind period instruments - Schiff makes each sonata sound perfectly natural on a modern keyboard.

Buyers may also want to check out a brilliant Haydn disc on Hanssler by Evgeni Koroliov, who has earned a reputation as a great Bach player.

In short, very highly recommended.

Schiff is breathtaking here - these sonatas take on another dimension in his hands. Not to miss.

As other reviewers have stated, this is a musically luminous performance of some important Haydn piano sonatas, a repertoire that needs to be better represented by high-quality commercial recordings. That said, Haydn's keyboard works really do benefit from performance on fortepiano. Beeethoven's sonatas more or less necessitated the invention of the modern 88-key, metal soundboard concert grand, but Haydn's were conceived for the older instrument, and need to be heard at least occasionally in this way. Unfortunately, period instruments are seen as the province of specialists, so artists like Schiff seldom go near them. This is not a reason to avoid Schiff's recording, however; good musicianship is good musicianship. But in addition to this recording, see if you can find the complete Haydn piano sonatas on a Brilliant Classics (a Netherlands label) set. It features a tag team of pianists: Bart van Oort, Ursula Dutschler, Stanley Hoogland, Yoshiko Kojima & Riko Fukuda.

Andras Schiff here shows us the lively and interesting side of Haydn's piano sonatas which are generally somewhat boring when played by others. Haydn's music greatly resembles Mozart's (sonatas) and Schiff manages to bring out that Mozart-like quality in this record. However Haydn's sonatas, while they each are quite different can sometimes be quite monotonous when Schiff tries to make them bigger than what they are. They are simple music really designed for students and relaxing music. When interpreted with a "Beethoven-like" quality they really can be destroyed.