Alexander Ludwig asserts that Hepokoski and Darcy’s Elements of Sonata Theory: Norms, Types, and Deformations in the Late Eighteenth-Century Sonata unduly marginalizes Haydn’s music by persistently labeling it as witty, humorous or deformational. Ludwig suggests two modifications to this sonata theory that would make it a more historically accurate tool for considering Haydn’s music, and by extension a more faithful representation of the body of eighteenth-century instrumental music.