I listened today for the very first time to the Andante and Variations in F-Minor by Josef Haydn. In as much as music has been a part of my life for so many years, I was surprised that I not heard this amazing composition before!
Haydn’s last piano work is also considered to be his most famous single work for this instrument. The minor theme is filled with emotional depths. It is a melancholy andante in f minor, with variations, as only a genius can do them, that almost sounds like a free fantasia.
The form is also demanding: not merely one theme but two – one in a major key, the other in a minor one – are varied in turn. The autograph leads one to believe that the work was originally intended to be the first movement of a sonata.
We will never know if that is true, so we should simply turn to the music and discover its magnificence.
Here is pianist Paul Badura-Skoda to play this composition:
