CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
Andreas Staier

Zankel Hall
Tuesday, January 12th, 2010 at 7:30 PM

Andreas Staier, Fortepiano

HAYDN Sonata in C-sharp Minor, Hob. XVI:36
HAYDN Sonata in E-flat Major, Hob. XVI:49
HAYDN Variations in F Minor, Hob. XVII:6
HAYDN Sonata in C Minor, Hob. XVI:20
HAYDN Sonata in E-flat Major, Hob. XVI: 52

Encore:
BEETHOVEN Rondo: Allegro Moderato from Sonata for Horn and Piano in F Major, Op. 17

Program is approximately 1 hour, 50 minutes, including one intermission

Program Notes:

JOSEPH HAYDN (1732–1809)

About the Composer

Unlike Mozart and Beethoven, Haydn lived a long and contented life, and perhaps for that reason we have been inclined to take his genius too much for granted. The 200th anniversary of his death affords an opportunity to celebrate his pivotal place in music history. In 1732, the year Haydn was born, Bach and Vivaldi were still in their prime. By the time he died 77 years later, Beethoven was busy ushering in the Romantic era. Haydn’s lifetime thus neatly encompassed the Classical era, and his music reflects the “classical” virtues of equilibrium, clarity, and seriousness of purpose.

Haydn’s influence was felt throughout Europe, although he spent virtually his entire career either in Vienna or in the idyllic isolation of Prince Nikolaus Esterházy’s country estate. After his time with the prince came to an end in 1790, Haydn embarked on two extended trips to London, from which he returned to end his days in Vienna. This late period produced many of his finest works, including the
F-Minor Variations and the second of the two
E-flat–Major Sonatas on tonight’s program.

Unburdened by financial worries, and blessed with a sanguine disposition, Haydn composed with equal facility for both amateurs and aficionados. His 60-odd keyboard sonatas span nearly half a century and offer a capsule overview of his artistic development. Many of them were inspired by women whose friendship Haydn cultivated in part to compensate for his own unhappy marriage.


Historical Context

The world in which Haydn lived was the world of the Enlightenment, an era of growing individual freedom that found expression in the egalitarian, humanistic ideal of freemasonry. (Both Haydn and Mozart were Masons.) This revolutionary spirit gave rise to the musical vernacular known as the Classical style. Its emergence ran parallel to innovations in the design of keyboard and other instruments. Although the so-called fortepiano was invented at the turn of the 18th century, it was not until the 1770s that it came into its own in the hands of such master craftsmen as Stein and Walter in Vienna and Broadwood in London.

Most concertgoers associate Haydn with symphonies and string quartets rather than keyboard music. But he was a skillful player on both the harpsichord and piano, and his early keyboard sonatas were designated for either instrument. Although he did not acquire a piano of his own until 1788, the dynamic and expressive features of his later works suggest that he had long been writing with it in mind. In fact, Haydn composed almost all his music at the keyboard. As he put it, “I get up early, and as soon as I have dressed, I kneel down and pray to God and the Holy Virgin that things may go well today. After some breakfast, I sit at the clavier and I begin to improvise.”


Sonata in C-sharp Minor, Hob. XVI:36

Along with the C-Minor Sonata, this ingratiating work was published in 1780 (although it was almost certainly written at least two years earlier) as part of a set of six sonatas dedicated to the socially prominent daughters of a Viennese doctor. Both Caterina and Marianna von Auenbrugger were accomplished salon pianists—Haydn fulsomely credited them with having “genuine insight into music equal to that of the greatest masters.” Although the publisher billed the set as being playable on the harpsichord, the rich colors and sharp dynamic contrasts that characterize the C-sharp Minor Sonata are unmistakably pianistic. The work is in three movements, beginning with a turbulent Moderato in mock-tragic vein and ending with a winsome minuet and trio. The middle movement is a set of variations on two alternating themes, a favorite procedure that Haydn developed more fully in the F-Minor Variations.


Sonata in E-flat Major, Hob. XVI:49

This captivating work is the fruit of Haydn’s intense—but apparently platonic—friendship with Maria Anna von Genzinger, the wife of Prince Esterházy’s personal physician. “I strongly recommend [the slow movement] to your attention,” he wrote to her; “it has a deep significance which I will analyze for you when opportunity offers. It is rather difficult, but full of feeling.” The Adagio’s blend of lyricism and drama is indeed hard to bring off. (Frau von Genzinger asked that one passage involving a particularly tricky crossing of the hands be altered, a request that Haydn seems to have politely ignored.) No less challenging is the opening Allegro, with its playful starts and stops, and contrasts between conjunct motion and wide leaps. Listen for the insistent three-note upbeat figure in the middle of the movement as it darts from one register to another. The Finale, a rondo in relaxed triple time, is all guileless innocence.


Variations in F Minor, Hob. XVII:6

The great Haydn scholar H. C. Robbins Landon called this masterly set of double variations “the finest set of keyboard variations between Bach and Beethoven.” Haydn wrote it in 1793, between his two visits to London, no doubt with the sound of the Broadwood piano still ringing in his ears. Although the manuscript title sonata suggests that it was originally intended as one movement of a larger work, the composer apparently decided that it could stand on its own.

There are not one but two principal themes. The first is a bittersweet melody in F minor based on a dotted upbeat figure, the second a perkier tune replete with rolling flourishes. For each theme Haydn provides two variations, alternating between minor and major, after which the F-minor theme returns in what appears to be a simple recapitulation. Instead, Haydn embarks on a long, rhapsodic excursion that comes to rest on quiet unison Fs.


Sonata in C Minor, Hob. XVI:20

This tempestuous work in the “dark” key of C minor dates from Haydn’s Sturm und Drang (“storm and stress”) period of the 1770s. (Other familiar examples include the “Mourning” and “Farewell” Symphonies.) Here there is no question of the appropriate instrument: The abrupt dynamic shifts can only be realized on the piano. In fact, when the sonata was published in 1780, Haydn altered some of the note values to take advantage of the piano’s greater sustaining power. The first movement is restless and tonally adventurous, its headlong momentum twice interrupted by free, cadenza-like passages couched in unsettling “Neapolitan” harmonies. The Andante con moto, a spacious essay in A-flat major enlivened by syncopations, gives way to a bracing finale full of virtuosic passagework.


Sonata in E-flat Major, Hob. XVI:52

The dedicatee of this bravura showpiece, Therese Jansen, was a star pupil of Muzio Clementi and one of most sought-after piano teachers in London. The sonata abounds in finger-twisting figurations, chains of thirds, and similar pyrotechnics. Its bold sonorities leave no doubt that the music was conceived for the piano, most likely one of the sonorous Broadwood instruments that Beethoven encountered in London. The first-movement Allegro is cast on a grand scale, with a declamatory opening in dotted rhythm, spitfire passagework, and wide-ranging modulations. Perhaps the most striking feature of the sonata is Haydn’s choice of the Neapolitan key of E major, a half-step above the keynote, for the slow movement: The unexpected tonal shift accentuates the Adagio’s searching, introspective mood. The sprightly Finale opens with an insistent motif (five repetitions of the same note) that Haydn proceeds to vary by register, ornamentation, and accent.

—Harry Haskell

© 2010 The Carnegie Hall Corporation



Digging Deeper

Wanda Landowska was one of the first international artists to champion Haydn’s keyboard music, which she played on both the harpsichord and piano, according to her somewhat idiosyncratic standards of authenticity. Shortly before her death in 1959, she recorded an album of his sonatas and variations. In an essay accompanying the recordings, she recalled, “During my concert tours, I often happened to be in Vienna, where I had the opportunity to visit the Museum der Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde and the Haydn Museum. There I saw Haydn’s harpsichord (made by Shudi & Broadwood) and his fortepiano. Touching relics and to us proof, if need be, that Haydn played both instruments, just as Mozart did. Within the span of his long life Haydn—even more so than Mozart—witnessed a tremendous transition in aesthetics. He stood at a veritable crossroads of keyboard instruments: while the clavichord was coming back to life in Germany as a symbol of the still adolescent romanticism, the harpsichord was being bade a fond and lingering farewell, and the fortepiano, received at first with hostility, was slowly taking root.”

By around 1790, Haydn had gotten out of the habit of playing the harpsichord and advised a friend to purchase a piano. He himself had recently acquired an instrument by the Viennese maker Wenzel Schanz (now preserved in the collection of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreund). It had a range of five octaves, from low F to high F. Haydn was partial to Schanz’s fortepianos, finding them “particularly light in touch and the mechanism very agreeable.” Characteristically modest about his pianistic abilities, Haydn said merely that he “was not a poor Klavier player.” Others rated him more highly. Samuel Wesley, who heard Haydn play in London in 1792, declared that “his performance on the fortepiano, although not such as to stamp him a first rate artist upon that instrument, was indisputably neat and distinct.”

In his advancing years, Haydn became increasingly sensitive to loud sounds and reluctantly sold his beloved Schanz fortepiano. However, the more intimate timbre of the clavichord continued to give him pleasure. He particularly enjoyed playing his most celebrated tune, “Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser” (“God save Emperor Francis”), the luminous theme from the “Emperor” String Quartet that was later adopted as Austria’s national anthem. Said the composer, “I have often found support and consolation from it on restless days—I can’t do otherwise; I must play it once a day. I feel quite contented whenever I play it and for a little while after, too.”

More Information:

Ticketholders for Andreas Staier's originally scheduled recital on October 16, 2009 should contact CarnegieCharge at 212-247-7800.

Wise and thoughtful music, written by a master whose works aren’t heard as often as they deserve. Here they’re played on the fortepiano, the instrument for which Haydn wrote them, by an artist the Independent calls “one of the most important pianists of our times … with an agility and wit that make hearing him a constant delight.”

Andreas Staier, Fortepiano
Andreas Staier, Fortepiano

Undoubtedly one of the world’s most prominent harpsichord and fortepiano performers, Andreas Staier embarked on a solo career in 1986 and, with his indisputable mastery, has since made an indelible mark on the interpretation of Baroque, Classical, and Romantic repertoire.

Born in Göttingen, Germany, Mr. Staier studied modern piano and harpsichord in Hannover and in Amsterdam. For three years, he was the harpsichordist of Musica Antiqua Köln, with whom he toured and recorded extensively.

As a soloist, Mr. Staier performs throughout Europe, the US, and Japan with orchestras such as Concerto Köln, Freiburger Barockorchester, the Akademie für alte Musik Berlin, and the Orchestre des Champs-Élysées Paris.

He has been invited to leading international festivals, including the Festival de La Roque d’Anthéron, Festival de Saintes, Festival de Montreux, Edinburgh International Festival, Styriarte Graz, Schubertiade Schwarzenberg, Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, Bach-Fest Leipzig, Bachtage Berlin, Bachwoche Ansbach, and Kissinger Sommer. He has also performed in all the major venues in Europe, America, and Japan, including the Konzerthaus (Vienna); Konzerthaus, Philharmonie (Berlin); Philharmonie (Cologne); Gewandhaus (Leipzig); Alte Oper Frankfurt; Tonhalle Düsseldorf; Wigmore Hall, Royal Festival Hall (London); De Singel Antwerp; Concertgebouw (Amsterdam); Palais des Beaux Arts (Brussels); Tonhalle Zürich; Cité de la Musique, Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, Ircam, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées (Paris); Teatro della Pergola (Florence); Sala Filarmonica (Rome); and Toppan Hall and Suntory Hall (Tokyo).

Mr. Staier has performed with internationally renowned artists such as Anne Sofie von Otter, Pedro Memelsdorff, and Alexej Lubimov. With tenor Christoph Prégardien, he recorded lieder by Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Beethoven, Lachner, and Brahms. He also formed a highly successful trio with violinist Daniel Sepec and cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras.

In 2001, Mr. Staier gave the world premiere of Contra-Sonata, a work for fortepiano by French composer Brice Pauset, which he also recorded for AEON.

His extensive discography has won great critical awards from the international press, whether on BMG, Teldec (with whom he had an exclusive contract for seven years), or Harmonia Mundi, for whom he released his last five recordings. More recently, he has recorded Beethoven’s Sonatas for Violin and Piano with Daniel Sepec—performing on Beethoven’s own instrument—and a Mozart CD (performing on Johann Andreas Stein’s vis-à-vis instrument with German harpsichordist Christine Schornsheim), which was awarded the Diapason d’Or and the CHOC du Monde de la Musique.