These sonatas are interesting as music, and the workmanship is skilful. If one can get over the thinness of the part-writing, especially in the slow movements, there is much to enjoy in them. The style of movement—Tempo di Menuetto—in No. 2 recalls Emanuel Bach's "Würtemberg" sonatas of 1745.
Here are the numbers of the sonatas of Op. 14: 11 (20), 12 (21), 13 (22), 14 (23), 15 (24), 16 (25). And here are the keys and movements—
No. 1. Allegro con brio in G; Minuetto, G; Trio, G minor; Presto.
No. 2. Allegro moderato in E flat; Minuetto, E flat; Trio, E flat minor; Presto.
No. 3. Moderato in F; Adagio, B flat; Tempo di Menuetto.
No. 4. Allegro in A; Adagio; Tempo di Minuetto con Variazione.
No. 5. Moderato in E; Presto.
No. 6. Allegro moderato in B minor; Tempo di Minuetto; Presto.
During the eighteenth century, both in Italy and Germany, sonatas in two movements were common, but with Haydn the reduction in No. 5 probably was made on practical, and not artistic grounds. Schindler once asked Beethoven why he had only two movements to his Sonata in C minor (Op. 111), and the master replied—probably with a twinkle in his eye—that he had not had time for a third.
If these sonatas of 1776 be compared with earlier ones (1767), an immense improvement in the development sections will be observed. In the earliest but one of the master's sonatas—No. 2 (30)—the whole of the middle section is in the principal key. No. 4 (Op. 14) has all three movements connected,—a plan, as we have already seen, adopted by E. Bach in some of his sonatas. The sonata in question is in the key of A major. The Allegro ends with an arpeggio dominant chord, and still in the same bar follows the dominant chord of the relative key of F sharp minor, leading directly to the Adagio; this movement, in its turn, closes on the dominant chord of A, the key, of course, of the final movement (Tempo di Minuetto con Variazioni).