Pianist Ivan Ilić came across these transcriptions for piano through the most unlikely sequence of events:
Carl David Stegmann (1751 1826) was a tenor, keyboard player, conductor, and composer, who worked mostly in the field of opera. Employed by the Court Theatre in Mainz (where he sang in the first German-language production of Don Giovanni), he also gave a number of acclaimed performances in Frankfurt. Trained as an organist, he made transcriptions of string quintets by Mozart and Beethovens Trios, Op. 9 as well as keyboard transcriptions of twenty-five of Haydns symphonies.
Pianist Ivan Ilić writes: It is unclear to me whether these transcriptions were ever meant to be played as concert repertoire, in public. Nevertheless, the enthusiasm I have encountered wherever I have played them has persuaded me to make this recording, to allow more people to hear Stegmann’s idiomatic arrangements.
Here is the second movement of Haydn’s Symphony #92 in the Stegmann transcription:
The transcriptions were intended for salon performances, where also women were allowed to perform. Most of Haydn’s sonatas are composed for intimate settings, with music, poetry and sometimes re-enacting of famous paintings shared the stage in what I would like to call performances.