Beethoven: Violin Sonatas Op. 12, Nos. 1-3

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Cat No: 8550284

Release Date: 12 January 1999

Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 4891030502840

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: BEETHOVEN

Description
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)Violin Sonatas, Op. 12, Nos. 1-3Ludwig van Beethoven's early musical training at home in Bonn hadprovided him with some ability as a string player as well as with moreremarkable virtuosity on the keyboard. As a court musician, following hisinadequate father and his highly distinguished grandfather in the service ofthe Archbishop-Elector of Cologne, he was employed both as court organist andas a viola-player. When he finally left Bonn for Vienna in 1792, it has been suggestedthat he took violin lessons from Ignaz Schuppanzigh, a former viola-player, sixyears Beethoven's junior, who had recently turned to the violin and aprofessional career that was to be of some distinction. Beethoven's memorandumbook, at least, contains the note Schupp. 3 times a W., which others suppose areference to Schuppanzigh's father, a professor at the Realschule, who mighthave been recruited to help make up the deficiencies in the young man's generaleducation. He also received instruction on the violin from Wenzel Krumpholtz, aformer member of Haydn's orchestra at Esterhaza, who had recently joined theVienna court orchestra, a musician who showed a rare early understanding ofBeethoven's work as a composer. Nevertheless his early career in Vienna wasprimarily as a pianist of considerable virtuosity, a course of life limitedfrom the turn of the country by his deafness and by his growing prowess as acomposer of the most remarkable power and originality.Beethoven's compositions for violin and piano cover a period from about1790 unti11818. An early set of variations on a theme from Mozart's opera The Marriage of Figaro and a Rondo were followed by the first completeviolin and piano sonatas, a set of three published in 1799 and composed duringthe course of the preceding two years. The sonatas were dedicated to theImperial Kapellmeister Antonio Salieri, from whom Beethoven had sought lessonson his first arrival in Vienna, acquiring from him a growing understanding ofvocal writing. While early lessons from Haydn were soon abandoned, the lessonswith Salieri, for which no charge was made, continued for at least ten years.The new sonatas were not altogether well received. The critic of theAllgemeine Musikalische Zeitung describes them as strange and bizarre, andfinds further fault with an element he describes as learned and unnatural,heaping difficulties on difficulties, while admitting that may have someattraction for those in search of musical perversities. For later generationsthe sonatas came to occupy an important position in the duo repertoire,examples of sonatas in which the violin offers no mere optional accompanimentto a solo piano sonata but serves as an equal partner.The Sonata in D major, Opus 12 No.1,opens with a movement of some brilliance, which nevertheless contains anintriguing and necessary element of counterpoint, a fact that some critics mayhave felt unnatural. The second movement consists of a theme, announced firstby the piano, a
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