One of six sonatas published together and dedicated to Prince Nikolaus Esterházy, this work was tailored to the prince's taste for delicate, even-keeled music not subject to wild passions. To accomplish this, Haydn had to take a break from his Sturm und Drang style of the time.

The first of the sonata's two movements is a playful Allegretto. It bursts in with a one-phrase proclamation, followed by a skipping figure with many little flourishes. The theme trips up and down the keyboard, and is answered by a more sustained melody accompanied by flowing triplets. The bridge figure coming out of the exposition seems for a moment about to become a militaristic bugle call. But the good humor returns immediately as Haydn puts his themes through a short period of mild elaboration; here and in the recapitulation he makes the subject with the triplets seem a bit more ardent than before.

Hard upon this comes not a slow movement, but an Allegro molto finale. It's a short, bright movement constructing its tune and variations largely out of grace notes, trills, and small bursts of quick passagework, with the left and right hands rapidly tossing tiny phrases back and forth.

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