There is no other collection of the complete Haydn keyboard music that comes anywhere close to this one. Ronald Brautigam plays all of this music, even the early divertimento-sonatas, as if it truly matters, with excitement and real panache. His exploitation of his instrument’s full dynamic range prevents the keyboard writing from ever sounding thin (in the early pieces), and produces those explosive, dramatic effects in the later works that are so much part and parcel of Haydn’s personality. His performances of the better-known works (the last sonata in E-flat, or the contemporaneous–and hilarious–C major, with its zany finale) stand among the finest available on either ancient or modern instruments. Finally, here is a version of the great C minor sonata that has genuine “Sturm und Drang” urgency.
However, if I had to choose a single disc that best illustrates Brautigam’s accomplishment, it would have to be the one containing miscellaneous pieces, including the Andante with Variations in F minor. This key was Haydn’s “personal minor”, and he used it much as Mozart used G minor, to express some of his darkest and most personal feelings. In both keyboard technique and harmonic daring this piece looks far forward to Schubert and even to Chopin’s famous funeral march. Brautigam plays the daylights out of it. The tumultuous coda is thrilling, the final diminuendo perfectly controlled. Brilliant, expressive, gorgeously recorded, this set belongs in every serious collection of keyboard music–and at 15 discs for the price of 3, how can you resist? [9/15/2008]
