The highly acclaimed series of Haydn’s complete piano sonatas with multi-award winning pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet has now reached Volume 6.

This set opens with the most imposing of Haydn’s early sonatas, No. 11, and follows it with two lesser-known ones, both from the late 1770s, that were published without the composer’s approval: Nos 34 and 35. Each of Nos 36 and 43, the last two featured here, opens a new group of six sonatas, and a new world in Haydn’s compositional style. Future volumes will continue to explore the huge variety of style and expression found in Haydn’s sonatas.

As usual, the pianist conveys his personal views in the booklet notes, praising ‘the generally very short phrases typical of Haydn, the abundant touches of humour, the surprises, the embellishments’, and adding: ‘The five sonatas in this programme are not among the most well known. But what treasures they conceal!... I am delighted to dedicate this disc to Professor Ernő Nemecz with whom I have shared a love for Haydn’s music for thirty-five years.’