This early sonata is a two-movement work and we call it a sonata as a matter of convenience but Haydn himself did not use the term at the time of this composition. It's unsettling to think of Haydn as influenced by others but these early works were modeled after the works of Vienna composers and C.P.E. Bach.

The first movement is a calm and careful working out of ideas, deliberate but graceful. The music explores the characteristic piano sound resources with engaging bass punctuations. The second movement resembles the first in tempo and thematic material but is concerned with a heightened and more rarefied expression. It uses trills but these are working, not decorative, trills and the music is willing to return without fuss to earlier ideas to work more out of them. This is naive music by an already sophisticated composer and an elegant way to spend ten minutes.

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