Haydn: Piano Sonatas Markus Becker

• Joseph Haydn (1732-1809): Piano Sonata in C Major, Hob. XVI:21:
• 1Haydn: Keyboard Sonata in C Major, Hob. XVI:21: I. Allegro06:00
• 2Haydn: Keyboard Sonata in C Major, Hob. XVI:21: II. Adagio06:12
• 3Haydn: Keyboard Sonata in C Major, Hob. XVI:21: III. Finale.Presto03:06
• Piano Sonata in E Minor, Hob. XVI:34:
• 4Haydn: Keyboard Sonata in E Minor, Hob. XVI:34: I. Presto04:14
• 5Haydn: Keyboard Sonata in E Minor, Hob. XVI:34: II. Adagio04:27
• 6Haydn: Keyboard Sonata in E Minor, Hob. XVI:34: III. Vivace molto - Innocentemente03:20
• Piano Sonata in E-Flat Major, Hob. XVI:28:
• 7Haydn: Keyboard Sonata in E-Flat Major, Hob. XVI:28: I. Allegro moderato06:07
• 8Haydn: Keyboard Sonata in E-Flat Major, Hob. XVI:28: II. Menuet03:41
• 9Haydn: Keyboard Sonata in E-Flat Major, Hob. XVI:28: III. Finale: Presto03:25
• Piano Sonata in A-Flat Major, Hob. XVI:46:
• 10Haydn: Keyboard Sonata in A-Flat Major, Hob. XVI:46: I. Allegro moderato07:28
• 11Haydn: Keyboard Sonata in A-Flat Major, Hob. XVI:46: II. Adagio08:05
• 12Haydn: Keyboard Sonata in A-Flat Major, Hob. XVI:46: III. Finale: Presto04:17
• Piano Sonata in F Major, Hob. XVI:23:
• 13Haydn: Keyboard Sonata in F Major, Hob. XVI:23: I. Moderato05:14
• 14Haydn: Keyboard Sonata in F Major, Hob. XVI:23: II. Adagio05:35
• 15Haydn: Keyboard Sonata in F Major, Hob. XVI:23: III. Presto03:47
• Total Runtime01:14:58

Info for Haydn: Piano Sonatas

This music may seem easy to grasp at first glance: so much seems clear and straightforward. However, once you take a closer look and spend more time playing and listening to Haydn’s music, it develops an endless, multifaceted life of its own. It becomes more concrete and at the same time more mysterious. Unexpected turns of phrase, sudden occurrences, humorous juxtapositions and startling asymmetries are just as much a part of this music as its extended melodic arcs that make the piano sing. Haydn’s music forms an intimate bond between song and speech. In each movement of the ca. 60 piano sonatas he wrote, we meet a personality, an unmistakeable character, evoked in detail.

Haydn was long viewed as the mere forerunner of Vienna Classicism – Mozart’s and Beethoven’s Papa, so to speak. His sonatas were mainly regarded as witty, useful pedagogical material. Several generations seem to have been unaware of his profoundly nuanced approach. Perhaps, however, Haydn’s keyboard oeuvre might require even better interpreters than the works written by his towering colleagues. One cannot clothe this music in an adequate form without applying a great deal of fantasy in one’s choice of timbres, along with a keen sense for musical rhetoric and careful regard for phrasing. Most of all, the Haydn performer should be able to modify the entire timbre effect and redistribute the balance among parts from one moment to the next. We must not forget that he was born way back in 1732: Haydn thus still had one foot in the Baroque age, as one can tell from the latent polyphony and frequent figures of musical rhetoric. His variegated types of articulation cover a wide spectrum: dozens of nuances fill out the range between Haydn’s profound, songlike legato and his humorously accentuated staccato.

Here is not where we will find Beethoven’s force and dramatic vigour, neither Mozart’s ethereal beauty. Haydn wrote a music of profound humanity, with a basic outlook similar to what the German Romantics called “humour”: a reflection of human life with all its beauties, unfathomable depths, hopes, losses, crises and joys, all shouldered with a large dose of passion and irony.

Markus Becker, piano

Markus Becker
is a pianist for all formats: his complete recording of Max Reger’s piano music is considered ‘one of the rare, truly great achievements in German pianism of the last half-century’ (Fonoforum), winning the annual German Record Critics’ Prize in 2002. His recent readings of select Haydn sonatas were rousingly received by the international press. But he also creates a sensation with the ‘freestyle’ of his masterly jazz improvisations. In the force field of jazz, avant-garde and allusions to the classics, he generates music ‘like dust particles in a beam of light: simply brilliant’ (Fidelity).

Markus Becker has traversed the continents of his instrument; now he exploits the direct connections between them. Whether on the concert platform or in the studio, he sets standards in the concertos of Bach and Beethoven, Brahms and Gershwin, not to mention his rediscoveries of Pfitzner, Reger, Hindemith, Draeseke, Widor and Franz Schmidt. Besides his interest in little-known repertoire and works of orchestral richness, he indulges in the pleasure of poetic lightness and ingenious amalgams. His freestyle playing thrives on technical elegance and a supreme sense of form.

Markus Becker has improvised at the piano since early childhood. His musical horizons were formed on international tours with the Hanover Boys’ Choir, in chamber recitals, jazz combos and pit bands. While studying with Karl-Heinz Kämmerling, the legendary professor at Hanover University of Music, he drew formative inspiration from a longstanding collaboration with Alfred Brendel. National and international awards soon followed, including a first prize at Hamburg’s International Brahms Competition in 1987.

Becker is a frequent guest artist at the Ruhr Piano Festival, the Schleswig-Holstein Festival, the Bonn Beethovenfest and the Ludwigsburg Palace Festival. He performs with orchestras of the stature of the Berlin Philharmonic, Germany’s radio symphony orchestras and the BBC Welsh Orchestra. His partners at the conductor’s desk have included Michael Sanderling, Antonello Manacorda, Marcus Bosch, Steven Sloane and Claudio Abbado. Among the major artists with whom he cultivates chamber music are Albrecht Mayer, Igor Levit and Alban Gerhardt. Today he heads a class for pianists and ensembles as a professor at Hanover University of Music, Theatre and Media.

Booklet for Haydn: Piano Sonatas