Beethoven: Cello Sonatas Nos. 1 And 2, Op. 5

Description

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827) Cello Sonatas Op.5Handel and Mozart Variations Like Mozart before him, Beethoven was trained both as akeyboard-player and as a violinist, although in Vienna the second skill was neglected. Forcello and piano he wrote five sonatas and three sets of variations, the first compositionsin 1796 and the last in 1815, the year of the battle of Waterloo, the whole periodcoincident with Napoleon's rise and fall. These twenty years contain Beethoven'sdevelopment as a composer, from the first piano sonatas under the influence of Haydn tothe great Hammerklavier Sonata, written for his royal patron, the Archduke Rudolph. Thecello sonatas too reflect changes in the composer's style, the increasing fondness forcounterpoint and greater freedom in contrapuntal effects, together with innovations, oftenstartling in classical terms, in both form and texture.In 1796 Beethoven set out on a concert tour, following a routesimilar to that taken by Mozart and Prince Karl Lichnowsky in 1789, passing throughPrague, Dresden and Leipzig, on the way to Berlin. Mozart had derived little materialprofit from his journey, although his Prussian quartets were composed on his return withthe cello-playing heir to Frederick the Great, King Frederick William II, in mind. He hadfound little good to say about the Potsdam musical establishment. The French cellist andteacher of the king, Jean Pierre Duport, he had met in Paris in 1778, and described him ina letter to his father as very conceited. He found the Prussian court musicalestablishment not beyond criticism, if we accept the account of the matter recalled by hisfuture brother-in-law. Duport had by this time been joined by his younger brother, also acellist, and from 1787 was director of the court musical establishment.Beethoven was pleased by his reception at Potsdam and seems notto have entertained the reservations Mozart had expressed. He played for the king his twonew cello sonatas, probably written for Duport, who performed them with the composer, andwas rewarded with a golden snuff-box filled with louis d'or, a present of which heremained proud. The sonatas were dedicated to King Frederick William. The TwelveVariations on a theme from Handel's oratorio JudasMaccabaeus, WoO 45, belong to the same year, and the set was published in 1797with a dedication to Princess Christiane von Lichnowsky, wife of Mozart's formertravelling companion. The Twelve Variations on Mozart's popular Ein Madchen oder Weibchen, from Die Zauberflote, were also written in 1796 andpublished in Vienna in 1798. The third set of variations for cello and piano, again basedon a melody from Die Zauberflote, is thegroup of seven variations on Bei Mannern, welche Liebefuhlen, written in 1801, and published the following year with a dedication toCountess von Browne. The first of the two Opus 5 sonatas, the Sonata in F major,extends traditional practice, to the surprise of some of Beethoven's less sophisticatedcontemporaries, in allo