Sociability may be a key term of reference for eighteenth-century studies as a whole, but it has not yet developed an especially strong profile in music scholarship. Many of the associations that it brings do not fit comfortably with a later imperative of individual expression. W. Dean Sutcliffe invites us to face up to the challenge of re-evaluating the communicative rationales that lie behind later eighteenth-century instrumental style. Taking a behavioural perspective, he divides sociability into 'technical' and 'affective' realms, involving close attention both to particular recurring musical patterns as well as to some of the style's most salient expressive attributes. The book addresses a broad span of the instrumental production of the era, with Haydn as the pivotal figure. Close readings of a variety of works are embedded in an encompassing consideration of the reception of this music.

Haydn Studies deals with many new aspects of a composer who is perennially fresh. It concentrates principally on matters of reception, style and aesthetics and presents many radical new readings of the composer's work. Contributions by both established Haydn scholars and others who are new to the field combine to give a stronger sense than is generally understood of the composer's immense significance.

W. Dean Sutcliffe investigates one of the greatest yet least understood repertories of Western keyboard music: the 555 keyboard sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti. Scarlatti occupies a position of solitary splendour in musical history. The sources of his style are often obscure and his immediate influence is difficult to discern. Further, the lack of hard documentary evidence has hindered musicological activity. Dr Sutcliffe offers not just a thorough reconsideration of the historical factors that have contributed to Scarlatti's position, but also sustained engagement with the music, offering both individual readings and broader commentary of an unprecedented kind. A principal task of this book is to remove the composer from his critical ghetto (however honourable) and redefine his image. In so doing it will reflect on the historiographical difficulties involved in understanding eighteenth-century musical style.

The advances in Haydn scholarship would have been unthinkable to earlier generations, who honoured the composer more in word than in deed. Haydn Studies deals with many aspects of a composer who is perennially fresh, concentrating principally on matters of reception, style and aesthetics and presenting many interesting readings of the composer's work. Haydn has never played a major role in accounts of cultural history and has never achieved the emblematic status accorded to composers such as Beethoven, Debussy and Stravinsky, in spite of his radical creative agenda: this volume broadens the base of our understanding of the composer.

The Op. 50 string quartets contain some of the purest writing Haydn ever accomplished. In this first full account of the six quartets, Dean Sutcliffe evaluates the Op. 50 in relation to Haydn's more frequently performed quartets and considers their relevance to Haydn's wider output. Each quartet is discussed in detail. The background to these works includes a brief history of the string quartet and an assessment of Haydn's earlier works in this genre and of his role at Esterhaza. The description of the composition and publication of the Op. 50 quartets is based on the evidence of Haydn's surviving letters and the recently discovered autograph copies of nos. 3 to 6--a discovery that is vividly documented here for the first time.