Menuetto (Sonata in E-flat, Hob. XVI:28, menuetto and trio (no da capo))

Background

If you look for this sonata in a shop or a library, you may find it under several numbers, which can be confusing. "Hob. XVI:28" comes from the catalogue of Haydn's works made by the Dutch collector Anthony van Hoboken, whose first volume appeared in 1957; he grouped the music by type, and group XVI is the keyboard sonatas. The Vienna Urtext edition, edited by Christa Landon in the 1960s, renumbered the sonatas in the order she believed Haydn wrote them, and there this one is No. 43. Older editions used other numbers again, so it is safest to quote the Hoboken number.

Whatever the number, the sonata in E-flat major belongs to a set of six that Haydn listed in his draft catalogue as works of 1776, alongside the G major sonata, Hob. XVI:27. It has three movements, with this Menuetto in the middle between two quicker ones.

Its trio is the surprise. After an elegant, sunny minuet in E-flat major, the trio turns to E-flat minor, a key with six flats that composers of the 1770s used only rarely, and it is full of syncopation: notes that start between the beats and push against the pulse.

How to practise it

This arrangement has 49 bars in 3/4: the menuetto (bars 1 to 32) and the trio (bars 33 to 48), without the return of the menuetto. It starts with a sixteenth-note upbeat:

The sixteenths are short and late: count "1-e-and-a" for each beat and play the sixteenth on the "a", just before the next beat. Keep them crisp but gentle, and never let them turn into triplets, because the menuetto also has real triplets (three eighth notes to a beat) in bars 3, 7 and 17 to 19. Practise a bar of each side by side until the difference is obvious.

The left hand is sparse at first, often just a two-note chord on beat 3. Later, in bars 8 to 11 and 28 to 31, the hands pass triplet scales back and forth; practise those bars hands separately, then together very slowly.

In the trio, count in eighth notes, "1 and 2 and 3 and", and play the syncopated notes on the "and":

Tap this rhythm on the lid with a steady count before you play it. The key signature of six flats means G flat, C flat and the rest: mark any note you misread, and remember that C flat is played on the white key B.

Tempo ladder: 56, 72, 88, then the full 100. Let the menuetto sound graceful and lightly pointed, the left hand always softer than the tune, and give the trio a darker, more restless colour.

Counting eighth and sixteenth notes is covered in note lengths and rhythm.