Haydn, the engraver Thomas Park, and Maria Hester Park's 'Little Sonat'

Abstract

HAYDN'S LAST THREE surviving sonatas for keyboard may all be associated with the period of his second visit to England in 1794-5. Two of these sonatas, those in C (H.XVI:50) and E flat (H.XVI:52), were originally written for the pianist Therese Jansen, with whom Haydn was on friendly terms at the time.1 The composer acted as a witness at Miss Jansen's wedding to the picture and print dealer Gaetano Bartolozzi at St James's Church, Piccadilly, on 16 May 1795. The autograph manuscript of the Sonata in E flat only has thus far come to light, dated London 1794, and inscribed 'Sonata composta per la Celebra Signora [sic] Teresa de Janson [sic]'.2 But the evidence of the first English editions of both sonatas (published in or about 1800) clearly indicates that both were composed with Therese Jansen-Bartolozzi in mind, and probably at her instigation. They are both described as 'grand' sonatas, the E flat major 'COMPOSED EXPRESSLY FOR MrS BARTOLOZZI', and the C major 'COMPOSED EXPRESSLY FOR AND DEDICATED TO Mrs BARTOLOZZI'.3 The origin of the third 'English' sonata, in D major (H.XVI:51), has proved more elusive. It was published for the first time by Haydn's Leipzig publishers, Breitkopf & Hartel, as late as December 1804, and designated a 'SONATE POUR LE PIANOFORTE'.4 Haydn apparently let it be known in preparation for this publication that the sonata had been 'composed in England for a lady, who kept the original manuscript and gave Haydn a copy she had written herself'.5 It has often been assumed that this 'lady' must also have been Therese Jansen-Bartolozzi.6 Indeed Albert Christoph Dies, one of Haydn's first biographers, specifically refers to a group of '3 Sonates for Ms. Janson'.7 But another of Haydn's early biographers, Georg August Griesinger, who from 1799 helped for several years to negotiate arrangements