Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827)
Cello Sonatas Op.
5
Handel and Mozart Variations
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.
In 1796 Beethoven set out on a concert tour, following a route
si