Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827)
Sonatas for Cello and Piano
Sonata in C major, Op. 102, No.1
Sonata in D major, Op. 102, No.2
Sonata in A major, Op. 69
Ludwig van Beethoven was born in the Rhineland city of Bonn in
1770, the son of Johann van Beethoven, a singer in the musical establishment of the
Archbishop of Cologne, and, more significantly, grandson of his namesake, former
Kapellmeister to the same prince. Trained as a musician, he followed his father and
grandfather in the archiepiscopal service, and in 1787 was despatched to Vienna for
lessons with Mozart. This first journey south came to nothing. Recalled to Bonn by news of
his mother's illness, Beethoven remained there after her death, responsible for his
younger brothers, as his father's dissolute way of life rendered him increasingly
incapable.
In 1792 Beethoven was allowed to travel once again to Vienna,
this time for lessons with Haydn. In the imperial capital he benefited from introductions
to the discriminating leaders of society and among them found patrons of infinite
patience. Lessons with Haydn were unsatisfactory, but he had no complaints about
instruction from Albrechtsberger and in Italian word-setting from the old Court Composer
Antonio Salieri. At the same time he established himself as a remarkable keyboard-player,
his improvisations as significant as his compositions.
The onset of deafness, the first signs of which had become
apparent by 1800, led Beethoven into an increasingly isolated existence, his
eccentricities augmented by his situation. Remaining in Vienna, he became a dominant
figure in the music of his time, exploring new possibilities in a way that was to exercise
the strongest influence on his successors. He died in 1827.
Like Mozart before him, Beethoven was trained both as a
keyboard-player and as a violinist, although in Vienna the second skill was neglected. For
cello and piano he wrote five sonatas and three sets of variations, the first compositions
in 1796 and the last in 1815, the year of the battle of Waterloo, the whole period
coincident with Napoleon's rise and fall. These twenty years contain Beethoven's
development as a composer, from the first piano sonatas under the influence of Haydn to
the great Hammerklavier Sonata written for his royal patron, the Archduke Rudolph. The
cello sonatas too reflect changes in the composer's style, the increasing fondness for
counterpoint and greater freedom in contrapuntal effects, together with innovations, often
startling in classical terms, in both form and texture.
Beethoven's A major Cello
Sonata, Opus 69, was written in 1808 and dedicated to his intimate friend Baron
Ignaz von Gleichenstein, an amateur cellist, who helped the composer in business matters,
arranging his pension from a group of rich patrons in 1809 and joining with him in the
courtship of the sisters Anna and Therese Malfatti, the first of whom married
Gleichenstein in 1811, bringing his close friendship with Beethoven to an end. On the
dedication copy of the sonata Beethoven wrote the words Inter
lacrymas et luctus (Amid tears and sorrows), but there is little sign of this
in the music.
The first movement opens with a brief melody that employs the
lowest register of the cello. The piano caps this, and roles are reversed, before the
introduction of a second subject shared between the two instruments. This material is
developed in a central section before the return of the first theme, played by the cello,
with a running triplet piano accompaniment. The second movement is in the form of an A
minor scherzo, repeated to frame an A major Trio, with its opening cello double-stopping
and lower register piano accompanying figure. As in some of the piano sonatas, there is no
full slow movement, but a brief E major Adagio which leads directly to a final Allegro
vivace, dominated by its first subject, announced by the cello, which later introduces the
contrasting second subject, although it is the first that forms the substance of the
central development and the closing section of the sonata.
The last two cello sonatas of Beethoven belong in inspiration
to his final creative period. Written in 1815, they were published in 1817 and finally
both were dedicated to Countess Maria von Erdody, a woman whose patience Beethoven had
tried sorely enough, in spite of her efforts to help him. There had been an earlier
dedication to the visiting English pianist and cellist Charles Neate, a pupil of John
Field, when it seemed possible there might be an English edition of the sonatas. The first
of the pair, Opus 102 No.1 in C major, was first performed in 1816 by the cellist of
Prince Razumovsky's quartet, Joseph Linke, and the pianist Czerny. It is in two similar
parts, the second slow-fast sequence balancing the first. A tranquilly meditative opening
Andante leads to an Allegro vivace, in the unexpected key of A minor. Here a fiercely
rhythmic statement in octaves is shared by cello and piano, in equal partnership. An E
minor second subject follows, before the brusque rhythm of the first subject re-appears to
open the brief central development section and the final recapitulation. A melancholy mood
informs the Adagio, which leads to a brief Andante return of the material with which the
sonata had opened. This constitutes a bridge, in form and mood, to the final C major
Allegro vivace, a movement suddenly interrupted in its headlong course by a hushed E flat
from the cello, to which the fifth is then added, before the piano comments with the
opening figure of the principal theme, a figure that lends itself, as the movement
progresses, to contrapuntal treatment.
The Sonata in D major, Opus
102 No.2, also written in August, 1815, opens in full vigour, with a rhythmic
figure for the piano and later entrusted to the cello, before its re-appearance as a
useful element in the central development. The second movement is a D minor Adagio, its
third and final section an elaborated version of the first, framing a serene D major
central section. The last movement is introduced hesitantly, a device that Beethoven uses
elsewhere. The cello then introduces a fugal subject, answered by the left hand of the
pianist, followed by the third voice at a higher register of the keyboard. As in the other
sonatas, the sound of the cello is never obscured by the piano texture, which is here
characteristic of the final period of the composer's music, exploring the extreme register
of the newly developing instrument. The music again has elements of the unexpected,
interrupted by the appearance of a brief second subject, accorded its own contrapuntal
treatment.
Csaba Onczay
The Hungarian cellist Csaba Onczay, awarded the Liszt Prize and
winner of the 1973 Pablo Casals Competition in Budapest, followed by first prize in the
Rio de Janeiro Villa Lobos International Competition in 1976, was born in Budapest in
1946. A professor at the Ferenc Liszt Academy in Budapest, he was trained as a pupil of
Antal Friss at the Budapest Academy, where he won the Grand Prize on his graduation in
1970. He went on to distinguish himself in Andre Navarra's master-class at Siena and
continued his studies at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow. Csaba Onczay has enjoyed
a busy career at home and abroad, throughout Europe and in the United States of America.
He has recorded for the Austrian and the French radio, as well as for Hilversum, RIAS and
RAI, while his performances of the cello concertos of Lalo, Schumann and Lendvay have been
released on the Hungaroton label. Csaba Onczay plays a cello by Matteo Gofriller bought
for him by the Hungarian Government.
Jeno Jandó, piano and celesta
Jeno Jandó was born at Pécs, in south Hungary, in 1952. He
started to learn the piano when he was seven and later studied at the Ferenc Liszt Academy
of Music under Katalin Nemes and Pál Kadosa, becoming assistant to the latter on his
graduation in 1974. Jandó has won a number of piano competitions in Hungary and abroad,
including first prize in the 1973 Hungarian Piano Concours and a first prize in the
chamber music category at the Sydney International Piano Competition in 1977. In addition
to his many appearances in Hungary, he has played widely abroad in Eastern and Western
Europe, in Canada and in Japan. He has recorded all Mozart's piano concertos and sonatas
for Naxos. Other recordings for the Naxos label include the concertos of Grieg and
Schumann as well as Rachmaninov's Second concerto
and Paganini Rhapsody and the complete piano
sonatas of Beethoven.