Question #1: Are Haydn’s keyboard sonatas the same thing as his piano sonatas, just under a synonym, or are they different? I’m asking because I’m listening to the “Keyboard Sonata (Partita) No. 15 in E Major” right now on Spotify but I have the sheet music to Haydn’s piano sonatas No. 1-20 at home, and I’m 99.999999% sure No. 15 is in C Major. And has a very different melody. And is a different piece altogether.
Question #2: Why the hell is it so hard to find a recording of someone playing Haydn’s piano sonata No. 39? I have access to the Naxos music database at work, which has 1.6 million classical music tracks and returns 666 results for a search of “haydn sonatas”, but only ONE recording of No. 39. (Typical page of results – no. 39 is skipped). Even alleged “complete” recordings skip no. 39 – check out this screenshot of one such track list.
Is it on some kind of blacklist or something? What gives?? Here’s Sviatoslav Richter playing it beautifully, so you can hear for yourself that it’s a lovely piece, totally unworthy of being shunned.
I do know that Haydn’s Symphony No. 9 is a bit overlooked, possibly because it follows the very famous “Morning, Noon, and Night” Symphonies, 6, 7, and 8. I’m very fond of 9, and it’s hard to find.
ETA: thank you for the YouTube link! I’m enjoying it very much!
From Wikipedia’s List of solo piano compositions by Joseph Haydn, it looks like the E major sonata is #15 according to the Landon numbering, while the C major is #15 according to the Hoboken numbering.
And, in the Classical period, as I understand it, the piano was still new enough that there wasn’t yet always a clear distinction between works specifically for the piano and works for any keyboard instrument.
There are two competing catalogs of Haydn’s piano sonatas: the Hoboken catalog, and the Landon catalog. Hoboken’s 15 (actually XVI: 15*) is actually an arrangement of a divertimento in C (II: 11) and is considered spurious; that is, Haydn didn’t do the arrangement. Landon 15 is the Hoboken 13 (XVI: 13) and is in E major.
*The Hoboken catalog is listed by type (roman numeral) and then number. XVI is the keyboard sonata list.
I’m thinking there must be another numbering system in place, which omits the spurious and lost sonatas that are included in the Landon and Hoboken systems. The second screenshot in the OP *does *include the D major Hob. XVI:24, but calls it “No. 22.” 22 in the Landon system is one of the lost sonatas.
The track list you linked to actually has the sonata in question: Hob. XVI: 24. It’s number 22 for some reason (I don’t know how they’re numbering it in this case, since the Landon 22 (Hob. XVI: 2b) is actually lost).
I suspect that you’re not seeing it on track lists and searches because of a confusion regarding the numbering schemes, not because nobody is playing it.
It’s worth pointing out that Haydn certainly never wrote anything called “Sonata number 39”. He just wrote “Sonata in D major”. The numbers were imposed later by publishers and musicologists, and for a composer like Haydn who was not, for the most part, publishing his works, it can be very difficult to nail down the exact order of composition, which is why this kind of confusion exists.
