Although programmatic thinking is quite characteristic of Franz Liszt’s oeuvre, in the case of the dramatically charged Second Ballade the composer did not provide a precise explanation of its content. Over time, musicologists and pianists have nevertheless enjoyed “finding” one, most often gravitating toward two exquisitely beautiful yet ultimately unfulfilled love stories. In a completely different emotional register, the colorful Romantic spirit infused the temperamentally charged Hungarian Rhapsody No. 15, for which the outstanding piano virtuoso Vladimir Horowitz later created his own version.
The early Piano Sonata in D minor (XVI:20) by the elder Viennese Classicist Joseph Haydn stands out for its dramatically variable character and its atypical formal development, which is why it is often referred to as the most Beethovenian of the master’s piano works. Insights into the similarities and differences between the piano writing of the two great figures of Viennese Classicism are further encouraged by placing Haydn’s score alongside Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 31, his penultimate piano sonata. Composed simultaneously with the Missa Solemnis, it is perhaps for this reason filled with recitative-like and singing elements that blend beautifully with pianistic virtuosity and expressive seriousness, captivating elegiac quality, and lyricism.
