Master Class with Peter Frankl (II/II)

Peter Frankl gives a master class on Haydn’s Piano Sonata in A-flat Major.

Composed around 1767-1768, Haydn's Piano Sonata in A-flat Major is heavily indebted to Carl Philippe Emanuel Bach's Empfindsamer Stil. With irregular phrasing, sighing appoggiaturas, expressive motifs, and extreme keys, the work embodies the heightened sensibilities of that musical period. The second movement Adagio in D-flat Major—a radical tonality into which even contemporaries like Mozart never ventured—has a striking contrapuntal texture and chromatic tendencies.

The Hungarian-born British pianist Peter Frankl is a Visiting Professor at the Yale School of Music and Honorary Professor of the Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, where he himself studied with Professors Lajos Hernádi, Kodály and Weiner. Frankl made his name on the international circuit as a young pianist in the 1960s. He is a passionate teacher with a lot of humor. He encourages and challenges young pianists to be versatile and to find their own and unique way of performing.