Haydn: Piano Variations

Description

Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)Piano VariationsBorn in 1732 in the village of Rohrau, near themodern border between Austria and Slovakia, JosephHaydn was the son of a wheelwright. He had hismusical training as a chorister at St Stephen's Cathedralin Vienna and thereafter earned a living as best he couldfrom teaching and playing the violin or keyboard.During these earlier years he was able to learn from theold composer Porpora, whose assistant he became.Haydn's first regular employment came in 1759 asKapellmeister to a Bohemian nobleman, Count vonMorzin. This was followed in 1761 by appointment asVice-Kapellmeister to one of the richest men in theEmpire, Prince Paul Anton Esterhazy, succeeded on hisdeath in 1762 by his brother Prince Nikolaus. On thedeath in 1766 of the elderly and somewhat obstructiveKapellmeister, Gregor Werner, Haydn succeeded to hisposition, remaining in the same employment, nominallyat least, until his death in 1809.Much of Haydn's service of the Esterhazys was atthe new palace of Esterhaza on the Hungarian plains, acomplex of buildings to rival Versailles in magnificence.Here he was responsible for the musical establishmentand its activities, including regular instrumental concertsand music for the theatre, opera and church. For hispatron he provided a variety of chamber music, inparticular for the Prince's favourite instrument, thebaryton, a bowed string instrument with sympatheticstrings that could also be plucked.On the death of Prince Nikolaus in 1790 Haydn wasable to accept an invitation from the violinist-impresarioSalomon to visit London, where he already enjoyed aconsiderable reputation. He was in London for a secondtime in 1794 and 1795, after which he returned to dutywith the Esterhazy family, now chiefly at the familyresidence in Eisenstadt, where he had started his career.Much of the year, however, was spent in Vienna, wherehe spent his final years, dying as the city fell once moreinto the power of Napoleon's army.Haydn's keyboard music was at first written for theharpsichord, with later works clearly intended for thepianoforte, as dynamic markings show. In addition tosome 47 sonatas, he also wrote a number of other works,many of them in the form of sets of variations.The Twenty Variations in G major was written inabout 1765 and in 1788-1789 abridged, re-arranged andtransposed to the key of A major for publication (Naxos8.553826). The theme is one of great simplicity in theform of a dance. The first variation decorates the upperpart in triplet rhythms, the second offers a derivedmelody and the third indulges in hand-crossing. Thefourth version explores a middle register of thekeyboard, the fifth has right-hand semiquavers and thesixth rapid accompanying activity in the left hand. Theseventh treatment of the material answers left-handchords with rapider right-hand figuration, the eighth isat first largely in the upper register of the instrument, theninth has broken chords, while the tenth and eleventhfeature thirds and o