Classical Music | Cello Music

Recorded on 09/27/2010, uploaded on 09/28/2010

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Ludwig van Beethoven composed only five sonatas for the cello and singlehandedly set the precedent for future composers in a genre that was practically non-existent. The instrument itself had only recently come into its own as a solo instrument, released from its restrictive role as part of the basso continuo largely by the efforts of Joseph Haydn. Though the cello had already assumed for itself a more predominant role in the string quartet, and secured a position in piano trio, there was nevertheless no example for Beethoven to follow in the composition of cello sonatas.

The five sonatas for cello also spanned a large part of Beethoven’s career. The first two, published together as his opus 5, were early efforts composed in 1796, and the third appeared a little more than a decade later in 1808. The final two sonatas, published as opus 102, appeared in 1815 during a turbulent time in the composer’s life. Plagued by illness, Beethoven’s output dropped off significantly beginning in 1811. His deafness grew increasingly worse as well, yet caused the composer’s gaze to turn evermore inward, leaving behind the outward heroism for a profound introspection which culminated in the last string quartets. The opus 102 sonatas marked the beginning of this transition, and already show the composer searching for a more personal means of expression. Besides a piano sonata and a collection of folk song settings, they were the only significant compositions to emerge until the Missa Solemnis and Ninth Symphony.

The second sonata of opus 102, and Beethoven’s last composition for solo instrument and piano, is slightly more conventional in form that its companion piece, conforming more to the standard three-movement sonata design, yet still an example of the composer’s search for a more unified formal structure. In D major, the first movement opens with a vigorous motif, twice leaping up an octave then descending in a scalar figure that may remind the listener of a passage in the corresponding movement of the opus 130 string quartet. A taut sonata form, the first movement abounds in restless, jovial energy. The exposition’s second theme, though at times more lyrical than the first, does not lose sight of the movement’s vigor.

Following the opening sonata movement is an Adagio in the tonic minor. In contrast to the gaiety of the previous discourse, the Adagio is weighed down seemingly by a fateful doom. Heavy chords sound from the piano’s low register intermixed with a rhythmic figure which sounds eerily like a funeral march. Over this sounds the cello’s passionate melody. The mood suddenly brightens during the movement’s central episode with a dolce melody announced by the cello, echoed and reinforced by the piano. An embellished restatement of the opening D minor section closes the movement, but a pause on a dominant seventh chords leads into the finale without break.

Springing forth from his study of the works of J. S. Bach and Handel, and looking forward to the finales of the Hammerklavier Sonata and the opus 130 string quartet in its original form, Beethoven introduces a four-part fugue for the finale of his final cello sonata. Preceded simply by two ascending scales, the D major subject, with a peculiar innocence in its demeanor, is announced first by the cello. It is subsequently thoroughly worked out during the course of the movement. Though brief compared to those later fugues mentioned, it nevertheless presages their highly complex, and often dissonant, contrapuntal textures.     Joseph DuBose