Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin

Haydn - Sonatas in E flat Hob XVI/49; in C minor Hob XVI/20; in C Hob XVI/50; in E minor Hob XVI/34

Haydn wrote 50-odd sonatas for keyboard. This concert was the first of a series that will present all of them at the Hugh Lane Gallery over the next two years.

Rather than a chronological presentation, each concert will offer contrasting sonatas chosen from the different phases of Haydn's long creative career. It should make for an interesting study, since his earliest ones were less sonatas than little suites and intended for harpsichord, while the late ones are very much works for piano, some of them foreshadowing Beethoven in scale and spirit. In between, not only the form "sonata" but also the instruments themselves evolved massively.

Pianists Fionnuala Moynihan and Peter Tuite will split playing duties, with every concert a solo recital, except this opener in which they gave two sonatas each. In some areas they are similar players: both prefer a lean, crisp execution, light on the pedal, with snappy tempos in quick movements.

On this occasion, Moynihan was the more reserved of the two, holding back in the early Hob XVI no 20, despite it being in C minor, a key associated with drama and tension, as would come to be exemplified by Haydn's immediate successors, Mozart and Beethoven. Her approach seemed a better fit in Hob XVI no 34 in E minor, although in the first movement she continued to resist opportunities to import the spirit of Beethoven. As was often the case in her 2010 survey of the complete Mozart sonatas, Moynihan was at her best in the slow movement, making of it a self-contained, self-explanatory journey. She gave the lively finale with sparkling energy.

Tuite's approach was quite different, and not only because his two sonatas (XVI nos 49 in E flat and 50 in C) were later works. Although it might be argued that there was an element of anachronism in his playing, which was demonstrably informed by a knowledge of Beethoven, Schubert and others, what he did was dig out what was most interesting and invest it with breath and colour in a very stylish and involved manner, that was ultimately very persuasive.