Haydn - Anno 1776 Sonatas

Ronald Brautigam, piano

THIS is a cracking little CD. I know I rarely really hate a record reviewed here, but also rarely do I love one.

But this is marvellous. It doesn't have grandiose sweeping themes or terrific tenors and sublime sopranos. It's one man and a piano and it shows that is really all you need.

The music trips forth from Ronald Brautigan's fingers like cascading water, making some listeners probably wish they had stuck with their piano lessons. To be able to play like this!

It is straightforward, attractive, late 18th Century fair - one of my favourite periods in classical music, when audiences were spoilt by the genius of their composers, of which Haydn was definitely a leading example. I particularly love his Nelson Mass and The Creation.

Here Bis has provided a series of sonatas, each a self-contained 12 to 17 minutes. Listen to them one at a time or back-to-back.

Unfortunately, although I would love to go on and tell you more about the background of the works, how they relate to the year 1776, and why Joseph Haydn wrote them, the first six pages of the review CD's programme notes were missing.

The French notes give a bit of an idea. "Un sourire de contentment traversa son visage" (a smile of contentment crosses his face - that much I can translate).

The gist is that Haydn, spending time at Ascot and passing a "le beau temps d'ete" thinks of his young colleague Mozart and the fact that he would have loved to have been with him at the races. Unfortunately, it's 1792 and Mozart has been dead six months.

The French text runs out then as well, so I can't tell you how Haydn's ponderings end.

But in the grand scheme of things it doesn't really matter because as we all know, music speaks louder than words.

Bis

1093