Some Thoughts on the "Clavier" in Haydn's Solo Claviersonaten

Abstract

rior to Joseph Haydn's 1790 Sonata in Eb Major, Hob. 49,1 which was written for the fortepiano, and a very specific one at that, we have only the vaguest knowledge about the instrument or instruments for which Haydn intended his solo Claviersonaten or keyboard sonatas. This is not particularly surprising, for with regard to this repertory, the very notion of a correct instrument is some74 thing of a twentieth-century projection. Certainly, the years from which these works date, namely, the second half of the eighteenth century, were a time of great variety for keyboard instruments: harpsichord, clavichord, and fortepiano were each in lively use, and many keyboard works would have been played on all three. We do not seem to have any record of a composer perturbed because his music was played on the wrong kind of keyboard. Composers apparently were distressed only by particular instruments, for instance, instruments in disrepair; Haydn was especially fastidious about fortepianos.2 In