Ludwig van Beethoven’s five sonatas for piano and cello is a great preface, a beacon, for the later history of the genre. The German composer had little existing models for the coexistence of the two instruments. Much like in other domains of his art, he was the pathfinder for generations of followers. Beethoven brought the two instruments together in a mature sonata form as equal elements of the dramatic development of the entire cycle. One should add here that, in the early classical period, all manner of strings merely served as the secondary instrument, a sidekick, in a duet with the harpsichord or, later on, with the fortepiano or the grand piano. The proportions of the two instruments were only balanced by Mozart in his ten violin sonatas – which did nothing to make a critic of the Allgemeine Musikalishe Zeitung interpret both of Beethoven’s opus 102 cello sonatas of 1818 in categories other than those of piano music alone. This hegemony of the pianist was preserved until the times of Brahms.
Sonata in C major op. 102/1 is Beethoven’s fourth piece written for piano and cello. Created in 1815, it is separated from his earlier compositions of similar form and genre by a clear chronological and stylistic caesura. The composer himself was then entering the final phase of his artistic path, one of absolute freedom and independence of all doctrine, a phase when all sophisticated constructs of formal archetypes underwent creative disintegration in the service of expression of an almost metaphysical variety.
• This sonata’s formal disposition is as original as it is uncommon. The piece only consists of two rapid movements, each preceded by an introspective introduction. The meditative theme of the introduction to the first movement, Andante, returns at the end of the intro to Movement Two. By integrating the parts of the cycle, it subtly brings together the mystical and the unsaid. The place of the instrumental sacrum (the introductions) twice recedes before the profane (the two movements themselves). Movement One (Allegro vivace) is a dramatic sonata allegro. The composer does away with the rule of tonal unity between the introduction and the movement by an unexpected yet final switch to A minor, thus emphasising the dichotomy of the two universes of musical expression.
• The beginning of the second movement (Adagio, Tempo d’Andante) once again ushers us into the realm of spiritual transcendence, and then is gone suddenly as the temporal and the playful come to reign. The finale (Allegro vivace) is based on a theme with a primarily contrapuntal function, fully realised in the polyphonic development, and joyful play comes to the fore. Beethoven described his work as Freie Sonata to emphasise the uncompromising freedom and distance from all orthodoxy.
Marcin Gmys