It was in the year 1774 that Joseph Haydn had his first set of solo keyboard sonatas published and that Mozart first tackled this compositional style.
The five sonatas presented here all date from 1773-1783, a decade that saw the fortepiano quickly become the preferred medium for a new style of keyboard writing, to the decline of the harpsichord used earlier.
All that remained was to find the instrument to speak this new language. The late Eighteenth Century German piano on which Jérôme Hantaï performs offers us a chance to hear a unique, expressive, cantabile voice.
Here is pianist Jérôme Hantai in music by Haydn:
