Fantasia in C Major / Menuetti

Haydn's career coincided with changes in the standard keyboard as the fortepiano, and then the pianoforte, replaced the harpsichord and clavichord. This album reflects these changes. Haydn probably wrote the charming 5 Variationen in D major for the harpsichord around the mid-1759s while the Fantasia in C major, with abundant hand crossings and effects, was intended to exploit the particular sonority of the fortepiano. In 1792 he wrote new dances for a Viennese masked ball and the Empress herself asked for keyboard arrangements which Haydn provided in the shape of the sparkling Deutsche Tanze and Menuetti. Hungarian pianist Jeno Jando has won a number of piano competitions in Hungary and abroad, including first prize at the 1973 Hungarian Piano Concours and a First Prize in the chamber music category at the Sydney International Piano Competition in 1977. He has recorded for Naxos all the piano concertos and sonatas of Mozart. Other recordings for the Naxos label include the concertos of Grieg and Schumann as well as Rachmaninov's Second Concerto and Paganini Rhapsody and the complete piano sonatas of Haydn and Beethoven.