Fantasia in C Major, H.XVII:4 (“Capriccio”)

Also referred to as “Capriccio,” Joseph Haydn’s FANTASIA IN C Major, Hob. XVII:4 is based on the Austrian folk song “Do Bäuren hat d’Katz valor’n” (“The farmer’s wife has lost her cat”). About the piece, Haydn wrote to his publisher in 1789, “In a moment of great good humour I have completed a new Capriccio for fortepiano, whose taste, singularity and special construction cannot fail to receive approval from connoisseurs and amateurs alike. In a single movement, rather long, but not particularly difficult.”