Beethoven: Cello Sonatas No. 3, Op. 69 And Op. 64

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Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)Works for Cello and Piano, Vol. 2Born in Bonn in 1770, Ludwig van Beethoven was the eldest son of a singer in the musical establishment of the Archbishop-Elector of Cologne and grandson of the Archbishop’s former Kapellmeister, whose name he took. The household was not a happy one. Beethoven’s father became increasingly inadequate both as a singer and as a father and husband, with his wife always ready to draw invidious comparisons between him and his own father. Beethoven, however, was trained as a musician, however erratically, and duly entered the service of the Archbishop, serving as an organist and as a string-player in the archiepiscopal orchestra. He was already winning some distinction in Bonn when, in 1787, he was first sent to Vienna to study with Mozart. The illness of his mother forced an early return from this venture and her subsequent death left him with responsibility for his younger brothers, in view of his father’s domestic and professional failures. In 1792 Beethoven was sent once more to Vienna, now to study with Haydn, whom he had met in Bonn.Beethoven’s early career in Vienna was helped very considerably by the circumstances of his move there. The Archbishop was a son of the Empress Maria Theresa and there were introductions to leading members of society in the imperial capital. Here Beethoven was able to establish an early position for himself as a pianist of remarkable ability, coupled with a clear genius in the necessarily related arts of improvisation and composition. The onset of deafness at the turn of the century seemed an irony of Fate. It led Beethoven gradually away from a career as a virtuoso performer and into an area of composition where he was able to make remarkable changes and extensions of existing practice. Deafness tended to accentuate his eccentricities and paranoia, which became extreme as time went on. At the same time it allowed him to develop his gifts for counterpoint. He continued to revolutionise forms inherited from his predecessors, notably Haydn and Mozart, expanding these almost to bursting-point, and introducing innovation after innovation as he grew older. He died in 1827, his death the occasion of public mourning in Vienna.In 1796 Beethoven had set out on a concert tour, following a route similar to that taken less profitably by Mozart in 1789, passing through Prague, Dresden and Leipzig on the way to Berlin. Court concerts at Potsdam since 1787 had been in the hands of the cellist Jean-Pierre Duport, teacher to the cello-playing Friedrich Wilhelm II, nephew of Frederick the Great. It was presumably with Duport that Beethoven played there his two new cello sonatas, to be rewarded by the King with a golden snuff-box filled with Louis d’or. The sonatas were published in 1797 as Opus 5 with a dedication to the King. The same period gave rise to two sets of variations for cello and piano, one on a theme from Handel’s Judas Maccabaeus