Two years ago Philips issued a record devoted to two Haydn sonatas (No. 33 in C minor, HobXVI/20 of 1771 and No. 59 in E flat, HobXVI/49 of 1789-90), in magnificent performances by Alfred Brendel (9500 774, 8/81). Now we have three more sonatas, all dating from Haydn's later years: No. 58 in C, composed in 1789 and comprising two movements, the first a set of free variations alternating between C major and C minor, and a positive advertisement for the still immature but fast-developing piano, rich in dynamic volta-face and explorations of the extreme registers of the keyboard, the second a brilliant, resourceful rondo; and Nos. 60 in C and 61 in D, both written during his second visit to London in 1794-5 for ''la Celebra Signora Teresa de Janson'' (Therese Jansen, who in 1795 married Gaetano Bartolozzi, the engraver, and evidently a virtuoso player): the first having a monothematic first movement with an extended and richly modulating development section and novel pedal-effects, an eloquent Adagio with an embellished reprise, and a capricious finale; and the second, again with two movements only, a broad, expansive Andante and a Presto full of dynamic contrasts.
Brendel is in tremendous form, responding as instinctively to the rhapsodic quality of No. 61's opening Andante, as to the poetry of No. 60's central Adagio and wit and bravura of No. 58's concluding Presto. The perceptiveness and musicality of his playing may well be a revelation even to those who know that Haydn's keybaord sonatas, still shamefully neglected, are every bit as good as Mozart's, which are anything but neglected. The performances will richly repay repeated hearings and, as before, they have the benefit of a beautifully life-like recording from Philips.'