Sunday, August 07, 2022

More Fun with Haydn

I always have fun with Haydn, but I have a particulary good time when Haydn has fun with me (and by extension us). Imagine how thrilled I was to come across this Minuet that he tucked into his 26th Piano Sonata from 1773:
He originally wrote the Minuet in the key of G major in 1772, and used it in his Symphony #47, which has been appropriately nicknamed "palindrome."

Haydn didn't write out the realization (the forwards and backwards directions) in the original score and parts. The piano manuscript doesn't include the Minuet movement, so we (who don't have access to the manuscript of Haydn's A major Minuet piano transcription) will never know if he intended pianists to try reading the piano music backwards as well as forwards. I also wonder about the form of this piano edition (and the piano edition I play from).

Should the repeat of each section backwards be the repeat? Or should the forward section be played twice, followed by two statements of the backwards section, with the trio played in the same way, making the Minuet twice as long as it otherwise would be? And what do you do with the da capo?

I think that following the form of the original orchestral version would be the better choice.

1 comment:

Michael Leddy said...

As any guitarist could tell yuh, da capo goes ovuh da guitar strings.