As Jane Magrath points out in her excellent book, The Pianist’s Guide to Standard Teaching and Performance Literature, ‘Haydn was for many years in the service of the cultured Hungarian Prince Esterházy and was a successful example of a royal court musician’.
Anthony van Hoboken catalogued Haydn’s compositions, so Hob. numbers identify the specific works. The Roman numeral represents that part of the catalogue which covers a specific genre. The Roman numeral XVI represents that piano sonatas and the Arabic number indicates that particular sonata in that group.
The Classical keyboard sonata developed during the second half of the 18C, during Haydn’s life. Keyboard instruments were changing and the harpsichord and clavichord were gradually being replaced by the hammer-action pianoforte. The development of the pianoforte is reflected in Haydn’s piano sonatas, because in his later ones he wrote dynamic indications on the music. There seems to be differing opinions on how many sonatas Haydn wrote.
C. P. E. Bach was an influence on Haydn’s composition.
Jane Magrath states ‘this is perhaps the best-known known first movement. The opening grace note introduces the character of this cheerful movement that requires overall endurance and attention to articulation. More difficult than it is perceived to be. The brief but moving Largo e sostenuto requires careful attention to rhythmic complexities, while the Finale, accessible but not profound, is filled with high spirits’. She rates the difficulty of the sonata at Level 8, which is one level above her grading for Fur Elise.
This piano sonata, Hob.XVI/37 is in D major and contains three movements. The first movement in D major is in sonata form, the second movement is in D minor and the final movement, back in D major is in rondo form.
The Urtext edition states ‘the morbid Largo in D minor is reminiscent of Bach and the final movement is to be played innocentemente, i.e. with innocence’.
And, the Universal Edition introduces the sonata by saying ‘the sparkling first movement, the brooding and archaic overtones of the short largo and the typically Haydnesque grandiose flourishes in the finale make the piece as excellent teaching work that more experienced enthusiasts love to play’.
Hyperion Records sums the sonata up as follows, ‘The D major’s popularity is easy to understand. The first movement, with its irrepressible, chirruping main theme, evokes the spirit of Domenico Scarlatti at his most dashing within the dynamic of the Classical sonata style. At the centre of the development Haydn offsets the prevailing mood of jocularity with a powerful sequence of suspensions. The Largo e sostenuto, in D minor, is especially striking: a grave, sonorously scored sarabande, archaic in flavour, with a suggestion of a Baroque French overture in its dotted rhythms and imitative contrapuntal textures. Like the slow movement of No 24, it leads without a break into the finale, a guileless rondo marked innocentemente and built around a fetching tune that could have been whistled on any Viennese street corner’.