PROGRAM NOTES

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 – 1827)

Cello Sonata No. 4 in C Major, Op.102, No. 1 (1815)

I.  Andante – Allegro vivace

II. Adagio – Tempo d’andante – Allegro vivace 

Cello Sonatas No. 4 and No. 5, Op. 102 were composed between May and December 1815. The first copy by Beethoven’s copyist Wenzel Rampl was made in late 1815 but was then subject to further alterations by Beethoven. A subsequent ‘good’ copy was supplied in February 1816 to Charles Neate for proposed, though unrealized, publication in London. Beethoven then made further small alterations prior to their eventual publication by Simrock in Bonn. 

During the period 1812 to 1817 Beethoven, ailing and overcome by all sorts of difficulties, experienced a period of literal and figurative silence as his deafness became overwhelmingly profound and his productivity diminished. Following seven years after the A Major Sonata No. 3, the complexity of their composition and their visionary character marks (which they share with the subsequently completed piano sonata Op 101) the start of Beethoven’s “third period”. 

The critics of the time, often perplexed by Beethoven’s last compositions, described the sonatas in terms such as the following from the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung: 

They elicit the most unexpected and unusual reactions, not only by their form but by the use of the piano as well. We have never been able to warm up to the two sonatas; but these compositions are perhaps a necessary link in the chain of Beethoven’s works in order to lead us there where the steady hand of the maestro wanted to lead us. 

Although played less often than Sonata No. 3, Sonatas Nos. 4 and 5 are now essential elements in the basic repertory of works for cello and piano. 

Cello Sonata No. 4 in C major, Op. 102, No. 1 

This short, almost enigmatic work demonstrates in a concentrated form how Beethoven was becoming ready to challenge and even subvert the sonata structures he inherited from composers such as Haydn and Mozart. 

Its overall structure is very similar to the contemporary piano sonata Op. 101. 

Both movements recall the long-established convention of a slow introduction to a brisk main section in sonata form, but with significant modifications. 

In the first movement, the introductory portion entirely lacks the portentousness of a conventional slow introduction, consisting of a brief elegiac theme repeated several times without change of key and largely unvaried; it concludes with an elaborate cadence in C major that is then contradicted by the sonata portion being in the relative minor, largely avoiding the key of C major except at the opening of the development. 

The second movement opens more in the manner of a traditional slow introduction and eventually leads to a sonata-form portion in the ‘correct’ key of C. However, before this point is reached, the opening material of the sonata reappears for a final, almost ecstatic variation; a procedure paralleled elsewhere in Beethoven’s work only in the drama of the fifth and ninth symphonies. 

Source: Wikipedia

PROGRAM NOTES

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 – 1827)

Cello Sonata No. 5 in D Major, Op.102, No. 2 (1815)

I.  Allegro con brio

II. Adagio con molto sentimento d’affetto – Attacca

III. Allegro – Allegro fugato

Cello Sonatas No. 4 and No. 5, Op. 102 were composed between May and December 1815. The first copy by Beethoven’s copyist Wenzel Rampl was made in late 1815 but was then subject to further alterations by Beethoven. A subsequent ‘good’ copy was supplied in February 1816 to Charles Neate for proposed, though unrealized, publication in London. Beethoven then made further small alterations prior to their eventual publication by Simrock in Bonn. 

During the period 1812 to 1817 Beethoven, ailing and overcome by all sorts of difficulties, experienced a period of literal and figurative silence as his deafness became overwhelmingly profound and his productivity diminished. Following seven years after the A Major Sonata No. 3, the complexity of their composition and their visionary character marks (which they share with the subsequently completed piano sonata Op 101) the start of Beethoven’s “third period”. 

The critics of the time, often perplexed by Beethoven’s last compositions, described the sonatas in terms such as the following from the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung: 

They elicit the most unexpected and unusual reactions, not only by their form but by the use of the piano as well. We have never been able to warm up to the two sonatas; but these compositions are perhaps a necessary link in the chain of Beethoven’s works in order to lead us there where the steady hand of the maestro wanted to lead us. 

Although played less often than Sonata No. 3, Sonatas Nos. 4 and 5 are now essential elements in the basic repertory of works for cello and piano. 

Sonata No. 5 in D major, Op. 102, No. 2 

While this sonata is more accessible and conventionally structured, the concluding fugue prefigures the fugal finales of the Hammerklavier Sonata and the late string quartets. 

Source: Wikipedia