Play Haydn's "Divertimento in G Major" Your Way! (PIYW #5, January 2026)

rsl12

PIYW #5: Play Haydn's "Divertimento in G Major" Your Way

Play It Your Way is a quasi-monthly event for beginners, professionals, classical, jazz, or pop pianists and everyone in between! We are starting work on Joseph Haydn's Divertimento in G Major (Hob XVI:8). Use the links below to find the sheet music, pick the movement(s) you want to play, and when you are ready, post your performance in the submission thread. Perfection is not expected!

Previous PIYWs:

Play "Beale Street Blues" Your Way
Play "Pachelbel's Canon" Your Way
Play "Autumn Leaves" Your Way
Play "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" Your Way (as part of the Winter Holiday Recital)

Thanks to keff for this month's selection! Please suggest pieces for future "Play It Your Way" events by using the suggestion box. The theme of the upcoming PIYW (to be announced in January) is Popular music, but feel free to submit good ideas across all genres. (Ideally, the Play It Your Way piece will be playable by many different skill levels, but it doesn't necessarily have to be.)

Guidelines

This is not a contest! It is meant to be a casual and fun event.
A new "Play It Your Way" piece will be announced on the 16th of the following months: Jan, Feb, Apr, May, July, Aug, Oct, Nov.
You can use this thread to discuss your preparation of the piece, or anything else related to PIYW. To submit a recording of your performance, go to the submission thread.
All PIYW submissions will remain hidden from public view until two months after the announcement (January 15). However, there is no deadline for when you need to submit your performance. You may submit a recording at any time, including before and after that date.

Divertimento in G (Hob XVI:8) by Joseph Haydn (1766)

From the Wikipedia page:

The keyboard divertimento resembles the sonata, but its purpose was more for entertainment. Haydn’s divertimentos tend to have three movements in a quick-slow-quick form.... Georg Feder groups this divertimento with nine others, calling them, “Nine small early sonatas.” Feder believes Haydn wrote them for his students or amateurs, as they are not technically challenging.

The piece is scored for harpsichord. The first movement is an abbreviated sonata form in 2
4 time, and is 44 measures long. It follows the pattern of modulation from tonic to dominant in the first section, with a ten bar central section before the recapitulation of the original material in G major. The movement is lively and has a two-voice texture. It presents rhythmic challenges such as triplets surrounded by duplets and off-beat patterns, and also features contrapuntal lines and sixteenth note triplets. The second movement is a minuet without the trio, in standard 3/4 time, and is a brief 16 measures in length. It has rhythmic complexity; in the first four measures half notes, quarter notes, eighth notes, eighth note triplets and sixteenth notes are all encountered. The third movement is a short, 9 measure andante in common time, where the first half of the piece is composed of four bars which are repeated once, and the second half comprises five bars which are also repeated. It is melodic and well balanced and also features contrapuntal lines. The allegro finale is in 3
8 time and is 24 measures long. It is also composed of two halves, which are both repeated once. It is described as a fast and jocund movement, and is a good study in finger independence and facility. It features broken interval figuration, octaves, and both sustained and moving notes.

Links to Sheet Music / Lead Sheet

You are not limited to only the music linked below. Feel free to find or create your own version.
You do not have to play the whole piece--you can just pick a single movement.
Keff reports that the ASBRM grades for movements 1-4 are are 4, --, 3, 2 respectively. I would estimate Movement 2 to be Grade 1.
You do not have to complete or perfect the piece to submit it, and don't be afraid to simplify or shorten the piece.
Improvisation, backing tracks, and backing humans are all allowed.

Sheet Music (IMSLP link)

rsl12

I want to emphasize that this should be a pretty beginner-friendly PIYW! The YouTube performance I linked above may make it sound difficult just because of the tempos he chose. If you have 2-3 years of piano experience, I think a decent performance of any of the movements is very achievable. Here's a student example of the 3rd movement:

Sophia

That's a very pretty piece! So clean and happy, it makes me want to dance! I can't promise anything except I won't be playing THAT version 😃 But I am not completely backing out either... it would definitely a ~~kiddie~~ ~~toddler~~ baby 50 seconds-even-the-simplified-version-would-need-to-be-further-simplified if I participate though!

rsl12

I played through the whole thing just now, and this is how I rate the four movements, from easiest to hardest: 2 (Minuet), 4 (Allegro, but it still sounds good played slower--I think this would be fun for beginners), 3 (Andante), 1 (Allegro). I think someone who has played for just a year should be able to perform Movement 2.

Sophia I can't promise anything except I won't be playing THAT version

I'm sorry to say there is only one version! But Movement 2 is WAY easier than the Bossa Canon and if you skip the trills I will not tell anyone.

Though personally I think Movement 4 would suit you best.

keff

rsl12 if you skip the trills.

This is a good suggestion which I will probably adopt just to limit the learning time....and the turns.

rsl12

Ornaments (trills, mordents, appogiaturas, etc) can be interpreted many different ways, but here's a quick guide about how to play them:

https://casfaculty.case.edu/ross-duffin/muhi-ornamentation-i-agrements/muhi-3441-baroque-ornamentation-i-description-introduction/

You can also listen to the example in the top post. I notice that 1) he sometimes adds his own ornaments and 2) often it's on the second repeat of a phrase. I'm intrigued. I knew that the earlier performers improvised their own ornaments, and now I have a chance to try it out for myself. I found a video that I'll probably go through eventually about adding ornaments:

rsl12

These youtube videos spell out one way to to interpret the ornaments in movements 1 and 3:

Sophia

Thanks very much for all those, rsl! Appreciate it 🙂

twocats

Fun! I'll join!

Greta99

I miss PianoJam so much, so I'm really glad we have something similar here.
I learned this sonata at the end of 2021 in order to improve my playing of pieces from the Classical period. I'm not sure if it helped, but I had a lot of fun learning it.
I'm not going to re-record it, but I'm looking forward to listening to your submissions.

rsl12

Greta99 Glad to see another person who did Piano Jams regularly! I hope one of the upcoming PIYWs appeals to you.

rsl12

I had time to work some on the first movement, which is probably the only movement I'll work up. Here's a recording. Some thoughts:

The more I play it, the more I like it!
At first I was holding back a little from the dynamics. For some reason I got Haydn and Handel confused, so I tried to apply a Baroque sensibility. But then it sounds so clearly of the classical period, and like Mozart, full of joy and surprise. (Is this my first time playing Haydn? I can't remember playing another piece by him.)
I think the rhythmic motif, displayed in first three notes, with the accent on the third, is the most important thing to bring out. It unites the entire movement.
Once I play the written notes to my satisfaction, I'm going to look at additional ornaments to add for the repeats. I really enjoyed the YouTube Haydn recordings that have those additions.

Sophia

rsl12 The more I play it, the more I like it!

Same here! Except I’m only two lines in at 🐢 speed 🤭

It’s the movement I like the best too, but I’ll learn it up to the first repeat, and it’s not likely I will be able to manage to get it up to allegro.

It also means my blues lesson is on the back burner again… I’ll never get that done it seems 😊

Sophia

Question! My sheet music (probably ancient) is different from both examples above:

The highlighted part is tied which is how I practised it up to now. But in both examples that rsl linked to, the sheet music doesn't look like that - and both pianists play the left hand almost staccato. Which do you guys think sounds better?

The videos sound very crisp and bouncy, but I also really enjoy the contrast between the slurred LH and almost staccato RH A and later G. So I'm on the fence how to proceed, and would like your opinion 🙂

rsl12

Sophia if you take the repeat, you can do it both ways! I'm playing it legato, but I don't feel strongly that it's the best way.

twocats

Sophia The highlighted part is tied which is how I practised it up to now. But in both examples that rsl linked to, the sheet music doesn't look like that

I suspect your version has the slurs as editorial markings because the performer can choose different ways to play slurs (and in this case the editor has written them in). I like rsl's suggestion of doing the repeat differently!

Sophia

Duh, I never even considered that. Sounds like a good idea 🙂

Sophia

Another question! What does it mean when notes have both a tie AND a dot?

pianoloverus

Sophia That's not a tie because a tie must be between the same notes. Normally I'd say it's a phrase mark, but I think it makes no sense to have a phrase mark on two notes that are played staccato. At least to me it seems like a mistake in notation? I think either the staccato marks or the phrase mark should be omitted.

rsl12

pianoloverus Sophia That's not a tie because a tie must be between the same notes. Normally I'd say it's a phrase mark, but I think it makes no sense to have a phrase mark on two notes that are played staccato. At least to me it seems like a mistake in notation? I think either the staccato marks or the phrase mark should be omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portato