The son of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750), Carl Philipp Emanuel, described his father’s Sonatas BWV 1014–1019 as among the best works his father ever wrote and continued to perform them extensively after his father’s death. This is music of implication and inference, the emotions no less real for their apparent lack of specificity. There is pleasure in the paradox: even without a text, the music sings.

Thomas Bystrom (*Helsinki 28.8.1772, ♱Stockholm 2.10.1839) was an officer, amateur composer and musician of Finnish descent who spent his life working in Sweden. His history and musical pursuits are to some extent obscured by the same veil of mystery as the secret societies typical of the times. Many of the questions surrounding his musical studies and activities remain unanswered. Yet he would appear to have been a man of considerable musical stature by contemporary Nordic standards. The compositions by him preserved for posterity are proof of his talent.

An album of Joseph Haydns (17321809) eight delightful early keyboard sonatas by Tuija Hakkila performed on two fortepianos. The current consensus is that there are about 60 surviving authentic Piano Sonatas by Haydn, while contemporary sources point to as many as 80. The earliest of these probably date from Haydns youth in the 1750s; the last one was completed in summer 1795. Some of the lost Sonatas are works that Haydn simply gave away as a young man, and they have never been heard of since. In mid-18th-century Vienna music was mainly distributed in the form of manuscript copies made by copyists. Haydn did not publish his first collection of six Sonatas until 1774. Of the Sonatas selected for this project, Haydn wrote all of these over a period of about 15 years before his 40th birthday.