Piano Sonata D major Hob. XVI:4
Sonata Piano solo
In brief

This sonata has a bright, springy character, built from short motives that answer each other with a lively, conversational contrast. You will need to focus especially on Form Knowledge (Connaissance des formes, 3.6/5) — here that means shaping the small-scale sonata sections (exposition, development, recapitulation) so repeats and transitions are meaningful — and Harmonic Analysis (Analyse harmonique, 3.6/5), which requires anticipating modulations to adjust voice balance and articulation in transitional passages. The piece is listed in the Hoboken catalogue as Hob. XVI:4 and belongs to Haydn’s concise keyboard sonatas.

MusicCoach difficulty
41/100
Elementary
Likely range : 35–46/100
Confidence : 57% · fair confidence
BeginnerIntermediateAdvancedVirtuoso
Exam grade
About grade 4 to 5

Estimated from our difficulty score, not taken from an exam syllabus. Checked against 333 works on the ABRSM syllabus: the exact grade is right 7 times out of 10, and within one grade 99 times out of 100.

Difficulty estimate by MusicCoach on a scale of 1 to 100.

Where this work sits
050100

Most works cluster between 45 and 65: a small score gap often marks a real step. The highlighted bar shows this work among those for the same instrument.

The MusicCoach difficulty measures a work's overall demands (technique, reading, stamina) on a shared 0-100 scale, consolidated from editorial and pedagogical reference points (Henle, exam syllabuses, curation) and our own analyses. It measures neither musical value nor the practice time YOU will need: two musicians of the same level can experience the same work very differently depending on their strengths (hands used to octaves, quick sight-reading…). The confidence reflects how many reference points sit behind the score and how well they agree — a lightly documented score is flagged “to validate”. For a truly personal bearing, the diagnostic and your space compare each work to YOUR estimated level, which the score alone cannot do.

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Difficulty sources
Henle Verlag
4
38/100 normalised · 6 obs.
Relative difficulty
35%
Among Franz Joseph Haydn
35%
Era
7%
Genre
Estimated skills
Theory
Harmonic analysis
1
Theory
Knowledge of forms
1
Style
Classical style
1
Technique
Hand independence
1
Technique
Legato
1
Interpretation
Dynamics
2
Interpretation
Phrasing
2
What to play next?

Each suggestion combines difficulty gap, risk, confidence and skill overlap. The first two cards in each column are the most useful pedagogically.

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