The booklet is unforthcoming, but HobXVI/5 and HobXVI/16 on Roland Batik’s disc are probably not by Haydn. Georg Feder in the New Grove Dictionary and Miklós Dolinszky (Könemann Music, Budapest: 1995) agree on that. Dolinszky is unsure about HobXVI/2 but Feder thinks it’s probably genuine (difficult to believe, given its workmanlike nature); but he does doubt the authenticity of the E flat sonata, Hob/Deest. That leaves HobXVI/6 and HobXVI/14 as the undisputedly real articles – and No 6 is the finer.

Batik reserves his most committed playing for this work, where incipient greatness is imprinted in many places, notably the melancholic slow movement. He invests it with feeling but doesn’t inflate its proportions, improvises small cadenzas at the fermatas at bars 10 and 24 while tactfully judging the dynamics (not specified in any of these sonatas) that are needed. The finale is reminiscent of Domenico Scarlatti whose music had by then become known in Austria, and Batik acknowledges Haydn’s debt without forgetting Haydn himself. Here is playing of high refinement, and the Bösendorfer piano is a delight.

No questioning the authorship of the sonatas chosen by Hélène Couvert. They are definitely by Haydn and are, mostly, interpreted in a manner that recognises their value. Purists might quail at the suggestions of ‘romanticism’ in the treatment of phrases, and the hint of notes inégales in the opening movement of No 46. They might also take umbrage that the through-composed coda in the first movement of No 49 is only played when the second half is repeated. Maybe it is a liberty because this ‘tail’ should have been heard both times, but a single appearance undoubtedly enhances its impact.

Couvert never slights Haydn; nor is she slighted by Ax, Brendel and Schiff who by their longer experience often find more in the music than she does. If the last movement (Tempo di Menuetto), of No 49, is not dance-like and too jaunty to convey the shadows of the E flat minor episode, No 20 is fine enough to stand alongside the best. Couvert is a cultivated pianist and a potentially distinguished musician.