Classical Music | Cello Music

Recorded on 11/01/2005, uploaded on 01/20/2009

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

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Sonata in D Major, Op. 102, No. 2 for Piano and Cello    Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven composed his last two cello sonatas in the late summer of 1815, but the impetus for their composition was an event that had occurred seven months earlier.  On December 31st, 1814, the palace of Count Andreas Razumovsky had burned to the ground.  The Count was the Russian ambassador to Vienna, but he is known to music lovers as the dedicatee of the Op. 59 "Razumovsky" string quartets.  In 1808, he had charged Ignaz Schuppanzigh, the great violinist and long-time friend of Beethoven, to assemble "the finest string quartet in Europe."  This Schuppanzigh had done, bringing with him the violist Franz Weiss, the cellist Joseph Linke and a gentleman known only to us as Sina playing second violin.

With the destruction of the Count's palace, however, came the demise of the quartet as well, for the Count had lost a great deal of his personal fortune in the fire. Linke found employment with the household of the Countess Erdödy, one of Beethoven's major patrons and a gifted pianist.  During the summer of 1815, the Countess and her husband were at their holiday residence on the Jedlersee.  We know that Beethoven joined them for a time.  After the summer idyll, the Erdödys and Linke left for Croatia.  Beethoven thus lost not just a patron, but two friends that summer.  Op. 102, then, was written as a farewell, a musical "thank you"; Beethoven was honoring his friend in the highest possible way. 
Op. 102, No. 2 in D Major begins immediately in a fast tempo, Allegro con brio:  Allegro with fire.   In No. 2, Beethoven generally allows the cello to lie much lower in its range, using the piano's right hand as the top voice.  The result is a darker sound, despite the brightness of the D Major key.  The second movement, Adagio con molto con sentimento d'affetto, is the closest Beethoven ever came to writing a full-length slow movement for cello and piano.  Even here it serves as an introduction for the fugue that follows, and the rhythmic values are largely 32nd notes, making the movement sound faster than Adagio.  The Allegro begins without a break, and the fugue subject feels a little off balance, making the normally terribly serious fugal form seem more light-hearted.  Listen also for those characteristic Beethovenian off-the-beat accents - always a sure sign that Ludwig van Beethoven has been here.   Bion Tsang

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.