Among Haydn’s piano sonatas, the great Sonata in E-flat-major is particularly popular. It was composed in 1794 during Haydn’s second stay in London where he became acquainted with the new English fortepiano and its fuller sound, pedals, and larger range. These new sound possibilities may have inspired the composer to write a noticeably fuller, chordal texture in the first two movements. Closely linked to G. Henle Publishers through numerous collaborative projects on Bach and Mozart, András Schiff was engaged to provide fingerings for this exceptional work in Urtext.
G. Henle Publishers stands for Urtext sheet music of the highest quality. The Urtext editions not only provide the undistorted and authoritative musical text but are also aesthetically pleasing, optimised for practical use and extremely durable. And then there is the strong, distinctive blue profile: (almost) all of the Urtext editions are bound in the characteristic blue cardboard.
Musicians trust Henle's blue Urtext editions because they:
- provide an undistorted, reliable and authoritative musical text
- offer superb, aesthetically appealing music engraving
- are optimized for practical use (page turns, fingerings)
- are of high quality and durable (cover, paper, binding)
- contain a short preface that introduces the work (particularly useful for AMEB exams) in German, English and French, as well as explanatory footnotes for particularly interesting passages in the score
- contain a description of the sources, an evaluation of the sources, readings and a documentation of the corrections made (= "Critical Report") in German and English, and often also in French
