Empfindsamkeit

Sensitivity or sensibility — the mid-18th-century German aesthetic of expressive, intimate keyboard writing that influenced Haydn's slow movements, characterised by sighing figures, sudden dynamics, and intense personal expression.

Empfindsamkeit in Haydn's Adagio movements requires a singing, flexible tone with sensitive attention to the ornamental sighing figures. These are not mere decoration — each appoggiatura and resolution carries emotional weight. Give the dissonance its full expressive value before releasing to the consonance. The touch should be intimate, as if playing for one listener.