Performing Beethoven's entire oeuvre for cello and piano in sequence
is a very different experience from playing any of the works separately;
it is a journey through a life. One wonderful aspect of the sonatas is
that they represent all of Beethoven's three major creative periods. The
first two, in F major and G minor, Op 5, were written at a time when
the composer was carving out a career for himself as a virtuoso pianist;
in those days, of course, most performers composed.
Beethoven performed these pieces with the famous French cellist Jean-Pierre Duport in Berlin, at the court of King Friedrich II of Prussia (an amateur cellist himself, for whom Haydn and Mozart had written quartets). This was in 1796, when Beethoven was just 25 years old, not yet suffering from the deafness that would transform his whole existence.
The two sonatas are real concert pieces, large in scale, full of exciting effects that would have left the Berliners gasping. They are really sonatas for piano with cello, not the other way round; although there are unexpected flights to high registers for the cello (as there are in all three sets of variations for cello and piano that Beethoven wrote between 1796 and 1801), there is no question as to which instrument gets the lion's share of virtuosity here. Beethoven was not going to let himself be overshadowed by a mere cellist!
The third sonata, the A major, Op 69, inhabits a different world altogether. Beethoven worked on this sonata between 1806 and 1808; by then, his deafness was acute, if not quite complete. In his tragic letter known as the Heiligenstadt Testament, written in October 1802, Beethoven had admitted that he had harboured thoughts of suicide. "It was only my art that held me back.
Oh, it seemed to me impossible to leave the world until I had produced all that I felt was within me." Yet this sonata - in common with several other works from the same period - is one of the most positive works imaginable; from the opening phrase, it radiates serenity, humour and joy.
There is not a note that is trivial, however. The A major Sonata is a thoroughly classical work, its proportions carefully measured, the themes answering each other in perfect symmetry. It is also the first equal sonata for cello and piano. Previous cello sonatas had either been cello solos with continuo accompaniment or, like Beethoven's first two, piano sonatas with cello obbligato. Here, every theme is perfectly conceived for both instruments; Beethoven had invented a new genre.
The "late" period of Beethoven's creative life is generally said to have begun around 1815. If so, the two cello sonatas Op 102, both dating from that year, would be among the first examples of that miraculous group of masterpieces. They certainly exude the atmosphere of other-worldliness, of transcendent spirituality, that characterise his last utterances. The differences between these two sonatas and their predecessors are immediately striking.
For a start, they are far shorter - approximately half as long as either of the first two. Everything here is concentrated, each gesture kept to its bare essentials. They are also far more closely argued, each note occupying an important place in the overall structure.
The fourth sonata, in the "basic" key of C major, opens with a simple two-bar phrase. It is from this apparently straightforward beginning, however, that the entire work develops; practically every note is derived from those two bars. The last sonata, in D major, takes off in other new directions.
After the dramatic opening movement, Beethoven gives us, for the first time in these works, a full slow movement, a prayer that must surely be the most beautiful movement ever written for cello and piano. But after that glimpse of eternity, he returns us to earth with a fugue that is positively rollicking.
And yet for all its sense of fun - and it is fun - the fugue also conveys a strong sense of achievement, of defiant finality; after struggles that would have destroyed a lesser being, Beethoven has emerged in heroic triumph and we can hear him exulting as he bids farewell to the cello sonata.
Credits : The Story Behind Beethoven's Cello Sonatas
By Steven Isserlis
The Guardian, January 2007
Beethoven performed these pieces with the famous French cellist Jean-Pierre Duport in Berlin, at the court of King Friedrich II of Prussia (an amateur cellist himself, for whom Haydn and Mozart had written quartets). This was in 1796, when Beethoven was just 25 years old, not yet suffering from the deafness that would transform his whole existence.
The two sonatas are real concert pieces, large in scale, full of exciting effects that would have left the Berliners gasping. They are really sonatas for piano with cello, not the other way round; although there are unexpected flights to high registers for the cello (as there are in all three sets of variations for cello and piano that Beethoven wrote between 1796 and 1801), there is no question as to which instrument gets the lion's share of virtuosity here. Beethoven was not going to let himself be overshadowed by a mere cellist!
The third sonata, the A major, Op 69, inhabits a different world altogether. Beethoven worked on this sonata between 1806 and 1808; by then, his deafness was acute, if not quite complete. In his tragic letter known as the Heiligenstadt Testament, written in October 1802, Beethoven had admitted that he had harboured thoughts of suicide. "It was only my art that held me back.
Oh, it seemed to me impossible to leave the world until I had produced all that I felt was within me." Yet this sonata - in common with several other works from the same period - is one of the most positive works imaginable; from the opening phrase, it radiates serenity, humour and joy.
There is not a note that is trivial, however. The A major Sonata is a thoroughly classical work, its proportions carefully measured, the themes answering each other in perfect symmetry. It is also the first equal sonata for cello and piano. Previous cello sonatas had either been cello solos with continuo accompaniment or, like Beethoven's first two, piano sonatas with cello obbligato. Here, every theme is perfectly conceived for both instruments; Beethoven had invented a new genre.
The "late" period of Beethoven's creative life is generally said to have begun around 1815. If so, the two cello sonatas Op 102, both dating from that year, would be among the first examples of that miraculous group of masterpieces. They certainly exude the atmosphere of other-worldliness, of transcendent spirituality, that characterise his last utterances. The differences between these two sonatas and their predecessors are immediately striking.
For a start, they are far shorter - approximately half as long as either of the first two. Everything here is concentrated, each gesture kept to its bare essentials. They are also far more closely argued, each note occupying an important place in the overall structure.
The fourth sonata, in the "basic" key of C major, opens with a simple two-bar phrase. It is from this apparently straightforward beginning, however, that the entire work develops; practically every note is derived from those two bars. The last sonata, in D major, takes off in other new directions.
After the dramatic opening movement, Beethoven gives us, for the first time in these works, a full slow movement, a prayer that must surely be the most beautiful movement ever written for cello and piano. But after that glimpse of eternity, he returns us to earth with a fugue that is positively rollicking.
And yet for all its sense of fun - and it is fun - the fugue also conveys a strong sense of achievement, of defiant finality; after struggles that would have destroyed a lesser being, Beethoven has emerged in heroic triumph and we can hear him exulting as he bids farewell to the cello sonata.
Credits : The Story Behind Beethoven's Cello Sonatas
By Steven Isserlis
The Guardian, January 2007
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