The contract signed by Joseph Haydn upon entering the service of Prince Paul Esterházy in 1761, stipulated in its article 5 that the musician had to "appear twice a day in the antechamber to find out whether His Highness is willing to audition for music or not." A great attentiveness, for the prince, of course. Unfortunately, His Highness could not enjoy it for long as he passed away after a year, leaving no offspring. He was succeeded by his brother Nikolaus, nicknamed "the Magnificent".
The Esterháza Palace
And as magnificent as he was, Nikolaus found that the family residence – the palace of Eisenstadt – was going to be insufficient for his work and purposes, so he decided to build a large castle on marshy land bordering a lake.
The palace was called Esterháza and was completed in 1784, when the waterfall in front of the central building was inaugurated, an ornament in addition to the opera house, the puppet theater, the library, the picture gallery, and the 126 rooms.
1768, Haydn in Esterháza
But long before the construction was considered completed, Haydn and his musicians had already settled there in 1768, for Prince Nikolaus, patron of the arts like his brother, kept the composer in his post, without changing a comma in the contract. Until Nikolaus' death in 1790, Haydn remained in the service of his prince and patron, whom he served for twenty-eight years.
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| Nikolas Esterhazy (? - 1790) |
During his last years in Esterháza, Haydn hardly wrote any works for the court of Nikolaus because, already famous, his output was in demand by an increasing number of publishers, from Paris, Vienna, and London. But earlier, in a single year, 1773, he wrote six sonatas for the prince, which, following the Hoboken catalog, are numbered from 21 to 26. Unlike those produced in the 1880s – strictly for fortepiano – these were written to be performed indistinctly at the harpsichord or at the piano.
Sonata No. 23 in F major
In a rendition by the pianist Sara Daneshpour, we present here Sonata No. 23, structured in the usual three movements: fast - slow - fast. It is a work of great conceptual maturity, and demands from the performer a certain virtuosity, if not in the extended and beautiful adagio, certainly in the fast movements that surround it.
Movements:
00 Allegro
03:27 Adagio
07:08 Presto
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