Section II · Haydn · Hob. XVI:20 · finale
The whole finale, 152 bars, line by line, with the questions an examiner asks about its form and its details. Look, answer out loud in English, then check.
Play from this score · big, page by page, for iPadThe notes were typed in from photographs of one edition (Henle), and drawn by computer. Every page was transcribed twice, independently, and every disagreement was settled against the photograph (zoomed in, and the position of each disputed note head measured against the staff lines). The facts below about keys, bars, repeats and returns of themes were found by searching the typed notes. The tempo word and the brackets were read from the page. Not exact: the small grace notes (for example in bars 1, 6, 121 and 122) may differ in detail from the print, and so may some ornaments. Not typed in: fingering, most dynamics, and the editorial brackets. If anything here disagrees with your own score, your score is right.
The numbers under each line are the ones printed in the Henle edition (the small number above the first bar of each line). The finale starts with a one-beat bar, which this page calls bar 0. The upbeat after the first repeat sign has no number in the print: this page calls it 46b, because it finishes bar 46 (two beats). Another edition may number differently, so in the exam point to the music, or name the edition, before you say a number.
Press a part to see its bars lit up on the score below.
Each question sits under the line where its bars begin. Answer out loud first, then open the answer.
Before you play: what does the first page tell you about the piece, the tempo, the time and the key?
The heading is (Finale), in brackets (in this edition a word in brackets is usually the editor's), with the tempo Allegro under it. The time signature is 3/4 and the key signature has three flats: C minor.
The first bar holds one beat only, a C: the movement starts on an upbeat, so the first full bar is bar 1.
How is the finale laid out? Where are the repeat signs, and where does each main section start?
It is in sonata form: 152 numbered bars, plus the one-beat bar 0 at the start. The exposition is bars 0 to 46, with a repeat sign at the end of bar 46. A second repeat sign closes the movement at bar 152: the development and the recapitulation are repeated together.
The development starts on the upbeat after the first repeat sign (bar 46b on this page) with the opening theme a minor third higher, in E♭. The recapitulation starts at bar 79.
Look at bar 46: it has only two beats, and the one beat that finishes it is the upbeat after the repeat sign. Bar 152 is also two beats long: when the second half is repeated, the same upbeat finishes it.
Look at bars 21 to 27. What is the left hand holding, and what changes in the right hand at bar 27?
In bars 21, 22 and 23 the left hand holds B♭ in the bass (B♭1 and B♭2 together on the first beat of every bar): a dominant pedal, the V of E♭ major. Over it the right hand runs in sixteenths.
At bar 27 the right hand starts a new figure in which every other note is E♭ (E♭–D–E♭–A♭–E♭–D–E♭–G…): this is the music in the second key, E♭ major, the relative major (i to III, as in the first movement). The same figure returns in the recapitulation a minor third lower, in C (from bar 129): I compared bars 27 to 36 with bars 129 to 138 by computer, and 92 of the 110 right-hand notes match once moved down three semitones.
Where exactly “the second subject” begins is a question of analysis. What the score shows is the pedal in bars 21 to 23 and the new figure in E♭ at bar 27.
The movement starts in C minor. How does the exposition end?
The last bar before the repeat sign, bar 46, has only E♭ and G: E♭4 and G4 in the right hand, E♭3 and G3 in the left. So the exposition ends on E♭, in the relative major, with no B♭ in the last bar. It has only two beats, and the upbeat after the repeat sign finishes it.
How does the development start?
With the opening theme again, a minor third higher, in E♭. The right hand of bars 46b to 48 has the same rhythm as bars 0 to 2, and its pitches are three semitones higher (I compared them by computer: 12 of the 14 right-hand notes and 6 of the 8 left-hand notes match once shifted up; the others are small changes). The exposition ended in E♭, so the development opens in the key where the exposition stopped.
Look at the left hand in bars 74 to 78. What does it do, and where is the lowest note of the movement?
The left hand plays F♯–G in every bar, each time in another octave: bar 74 F♯3–G3, bar 75 F♯4–G4, bar 76 F♯3–G3, bar 77 F♯2–G2 and bar 78 F♯1–G1. The F♯1 in bar 78 is the lowest note of the movement; the highest is f6 in bar 111. So the finale uses the whole range of a five-octave keyboard, from F♯1 almost to the top f.
In bar 78 the hands together make G, B and D (a G major sound, the dominant of C minor) before the opening theme comes back in C minor at bar 79.
How can you tell that the recapitulation starts at bar 79?
Bars 79 to 83 bring back the opening theme in C minor. The left hand of bars 79 to 83 has the same notes as bars 1 to 5 (all 24 left-hand notes match, at the same beat and length), and the right hand starts the same way (33 of 38 pitches match, but some rhythms are changed, and bar 79 has a passing C♯). Bar 83 is the same as bar 5 in the right hand as well.
Bar 78 is a lead-in: B♮4–C5–D5 on the last beats, instead of the single C that opened the movement.
Look at bars 107 to 119. What is unusual about the hands?
The left hand plays above the right hand: the hands cross. For example in bar 116 the right hand plays a broken figure that never goes higher than C5, while the left hand plays G5 and E♭5 above it. I found the crossing by checking, bar by bar, whether a left-hand note sounds higher than a right-hand note at the same time: this happens in every bar from 107 to 119, and also in bars 29 and 30 and in bars 131 and 132.
Look at bar 120. What is written there?
Bar 120 is a pause: both hands rest on the first two beats, with a fermata over the second rest, and a single C4 on the third beat, marked (p) in brackets. The loud crossing passage stops, and the music starts again quietly in bar 121.
How does the finale end? Is there a tierce de Picardie?
The last chord is a C minor chord: C2, C3, E♭3 and G3 in the left hand, with C4 in the right hand. The third is E♭, not E natural: no tierce de Picardie. From bar 146 to the end the bass starts every bar on C (a tonic pedal), and bar 151 has D3, F3 and C3 in the left hand with B♮3 in the right hand before the final chord.
The last bar, 152, has only two beats (the chord, then a rest) and carries the repeat sign. In the photographed edition the last dynamic mark is an f in bar 150, and I see no dynamic under bars 151 and 152. The course notes say the finale closes pp: that is not confirmed in this edition, so say it only as “I have read that…”.
The words to use are on the Answer Cards (Haydn, Q3). To practise speaking, use the voice examiner and ask for Haydn, question 3.