Haydn’s subtly orchestral Adagio

The orchestral nature of music written for keyboard is one of the first things young pianists learn about the music they play as they use their ten fingers to imitate various sections of the orchestra. Naturally, because of its percussive character, the piano is less suitable to imitating the human human voice than string and wind instruments are. Haydn’s keyboard music is no exception, but this Adagio is, as the composer combines subtle orchestral writing with a singing line that could have been an aria in a liturgical work.

The simplicity of Haydn’s C major sonata, Hob. XVI:48

If a hyper-intelligent Martian who never heard music in his life and had no notion of the concept, five minutes after landing on Earth were made to listen to Haydn’s C major sonata Hob. XVI:48, he would reach two conclusions based on the sound patterns he heard: (a) that something very simple is going on here, and (b) that there’s a great deal of sophistication in this simplicity. A year later, that same Martian, after having listened to all of the piano output of Mozart and Beethoven, Schubert, and Schumann, as well as of Brahms, Chopin, Liszt, Debussy, Ravel, and Bartok, etc., would still insist that Haydn’s C major sonata is one breathtaking piece of music, in its subtle simplicity.