recensions:

Manfred Karallus at Hessischen Rundfunk
Klassik Radio
Paul Fiebig at SWR 2

excerpt from the booklet text:

"Art ist born to be free and should not be restricted. The educated ear has to decide, and I feel entiled as anyone else to make laws in this matter."
Joseph Haydn

An encounter with Joseph Haydn's piano music is like discovering an inexhaustible source of musical invention. Sometime around May 2000 I felt the sudden urge to work on the sonatas Haydn had written between 1765 and 1785, a period in which he was not only very productive (he composed 30 sonatas) but also showed a great keenness for experimenting.

In 1760 Haydn was appointed to the court of Prince Esterházy. As we know from his biographer Griesinger that Haydn had been very enthusiastic over his seclusion there: "My Prince was most satisfied with my work and it was met with great approval, as conductor of the orchestra I could experiment, try out what might enhance or weaken a certain impression, which meant correcting, adding, cutting away and daring; I was secluded from the rest of the world, there was nobody near to disconcert me or to make me suffer and thus I had no other choice than to become my true self."

Led by a strong passion for experimenting, Haydn was treading new paths. His inventiveness becomes distinctly apparent in the thematic material, the harmonies as well as instrumental colourings and especially in a new awareness of form. Haydn's music is "musical rhetoric". It addresses us with the most profound possible richness of emotional intensity, switching from inward glee to fierce revolt, a playful and innocent enjoyment of life, high-spiritedness and sheer effusiveness, just to mention a few facets of expression.

Beside the rich imaginativeness Haydn shows in his sonatas, his varied selection of keys is equally impressive. While planning this recording, this inspired me to compile a selection of keys that would build up to a harmonic whole. This eventually resulted in a musically logical succession in which sharps, flats as well as major and minor keys are just as evenly balanced as their inherent relations of thirds and fifths:
C minor - G minor - B flat major - F major such as
C major - E minor - B minor - E major.

No-one besides Ludwig Pinscher has been able to express so to the point the fascination Haydn's music holds for me: "It is a language of pure beauty, practical reason, bright intellectuality and deep emotion. In the end, Haydn was the greatest composer of the age of enlightenment in the truest and profoundest meaning of the word."
Angelika Nebel
Translation: Julia Whybrow

This CD is published by RONERrecords and available in selected stores or directly at Angelika Nebel. Upon request CD´s can be autographed (Price: 24,99 €).