Light of touch, stylistically assured and brimful of intelligence and wit, Leon McCawley’s second instalment of Haydn sonatas for Somm fairly sparkles with delight. This follows his 2016 recording of four sonatas plus the F minor Variations (2/17) and, while no mention is made of a ‘complete’ Haydn sonata set, one hopes that the series will continue, whatever its purview.

Haydn’s multifarious moods are captured with the ease of a master portraitist, working with the utmost economy of means. In these five very different sonatas, one never feels that the musical discourse veers toward overstatement: eloquence is achieved with simplicity, allowing the richness of Haydn’s imagination to shine brightly throughout.

Though seldom identified with opera today, Haydn wrote some two dozen of them. The Sonata in E minor (HobXVI:47) opens with an Adagio that could easily double for a fully developed scena in one of the Eszterháza operas, with the heroine sharing her melancholy indecision, only to hit upon her dilemma’s solution in the ensuing Allegro.

Haydn of the Sturm und Drang symphonies seems to step forward in the B minor Sonata (No 32). McCawley vividly evokes the seriousness of the powerful Allegro, before transitioning seamlessly into a Minuet in B major, with a minor-key Trio suggesting that relief will be short-lived. In the Presto finale, intrigue returns with polyphonic passagework and insistent rhythms that bring the symphonic drama to a tragic conclusion.

Among these five sonatas are three minuets, each as varied in character as their expressive purpose within the context of their respective sonatas, yet always true to the essential poise of 18th-century dance. And this may be the key to McCawley’s success as a Haydn interpreter. Reliant on touch and articulation within a relatively restrained dynamic compass, he vividly recreates the breadth and depth of Haydn’s musical imagination on the modern Steinway in a way that never seems overblown, but always proportionate.

McCawley has a great deal to say in this music, and does so with eloquence and grace. I look forward to hearing a lot more.