Québec pianist Marc-André Hamelin has emerged as a major star of the keyboard in recent years, but this brilliant double-disc set of Haydn keyboard sonatas -- a representative 10 out of some 60 the composer wrote -- was still hard to see coming. It may well become the definitive single-release choice for Haydn's sonatas, which are too often cherry-picked by the comparatively few big-name pianists who often include them on recordings and recitals. The temptation is to turn to the large-scale pieces Haydn wrote toward the end ...
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Québec pianist Marc-André Hamelin has emerged as a major star of the keyboard in recent years, but this brilliant double-disc set of Haydn keyboard sonatas -- a representative 10 out of some 60 the composer wrote -- was still hard to see coming. It may well become the definitive single-release choice for Haydn's sonatas, which are too often cherry-picked by the comparatively few big-name pianists who often include them on recordings and recitals. The temptation is to turn to the large-scale pieces Haydn wrote toward the end of his career, rather Beethovenian works that influenced the young king of the piano sonata profoundly. The Piano Sonata in E flat major, Hob. 16/52, especially, sounds fine if a pianist stretches out a bit on a modern grand while rendering it. That work and the more capricious but equally large-scale Piano Sonata in C major, Hob. 16/50, are included on Hamelin's program, and the interpretations are masterly. If you are listening on headphones in a public place, your companions are...
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