Menuet (Sonata in G, Hob. XVI:27, menuet and trio (no da capo))

Background

Joseph Haydn (1732–1809) spent most of his career as music director to the Esterházy princes, at their palaces of Eisenstadt and Eszterháza. Besides symphonies, operas and string quartets for the court, he wrote more than fifty keyboard sonatas, many of them for the skilled amateur players who were buying music in growing numbers.

This sonata is numbered XVI:27 in the catalogue of Haydn's works compiled by Anthony van Hoboken (group XVI holds the keyboard sonatas); some modern editions, following the numbering of Christa Landon, call it No. 42. It belongs to a set of six sonatas, Hob. XVI:27 to 32, that Haydn entered in his own catalogue of works as sonatas "of the year 1776". The set circulated in manuscript copies and soon in print.

The sonata has three movements: a brisk opening Allegro con brio, this Menuet with its trio, and a quick finale. Inside a sonata, a minuet was music for listening rather than dancing. This one keeps the dance's three-beat pulse but plays with it, here by mixing plain quarter notes with skipping triplets. The trio, in G minor, darkens the mood before the minuet would normally return.

How to practise it

This arrangement is in G major, 3/4 time, 66 bars: the menuet (bars 1 to 42) and the trio in G minor (bars 43 to 66), without the return of the menuet at the end.

The menuet's first bar outlines a G major chord, so the hand can stay still:

The rhythm is the main challenge. After a quarter note on beat 1, beats 2 and 3 each have three eighth notes, a triplet. Clap and say bar 1 before playing it: "ONE, two-trip-let, three-trip-let". Then keep the triplets light and even, like little skips, without rushing into the next downbeat. Elsewhere the menuet uses ordinary eighth notes and dotted rhythms, so be strict about which is which.

In bars 9 to 12 and again in bars 35 to 38 the tune holds a high note across the beat and then finishes with two triplet notes. Count the triplets silently through the long note so the last two arrive on time.

The trio needs a smoother touch. From bar 51 the left hand rocks between two B flats an octave apart:

Keep the hand in an octave shape and let the wrist rock gently, so the octave hums rather than thumps. Earlier, in bars 43 to 46 and 59 to 62, the two-note chords under the tune belong to the left hand: after its bass note it crosses up into the treble for them, which leaves the right hand free for the runs that climb well over an octave.

Tempo ladder: 60, 76, 92, then the full 104. Listen for an elegant, unhurried menuet with sparkling triplets, and a trio that is darker and more singing.

Haydn's Menuetto from the Sonata in E-flat, Hob. XVI:28, from the same set of six, makes a good companion piece.