'CELLO SONATAS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 25, Issue 634, 24 August 1951, Page 21

'CELLO SONATAS

BY

BEETHOVEN

N each of the next five Tuesdays, at 7.30 p.m., listeners to 2YC will hear one of the five Sonatas for ’cello and piano composed by Beethoven between 1796 and 1815, played by Marie Vandewart (‘cello) and Dorothy Davies (piano). These are much less generally known than any of the other Sonatas. They all display a particular structure not met in the violin works, still less in those written for the piano. The composer, apparently attracted by the tenor voice of the instrument, did his best to

Dring out this singing quality in slow, ‘broad phrases and give it the element of virtuosity. Contrasting the violoncello Sonatas with those for the violin, Paul Bekker, German critic, author, violinist and conductor, wrote: "The violoncello is

better adapted a: a solo instrument for | Chamber music duets than the violin. ) Its nobler tenor tone, virile, earnest yet | adaptable and sympathetic character | surpass for this purpose the coquetry and | bravura of the vielin, and substitute | simple cantabile for firework effects, . . The emotional earnestness and _ structural grandeur of the opening move- | ments of these ‘cello pieces are sur- | prising." Sonatas Nos. 1 and 2, Op. 5, were dedicated by Beethoven to the King of Prussia, Frederick William II., and issued in Vienna in 1797. The previous year Beethoven travelled. from Prague to Berlin and these two Sonatas were played at court, the composer himself taking the piano part. The King presented him with a box of louis d’or, and Beethoven is reported to have shown it with great appreciation to his friends as "no common box, but one of the sort usually given to ambassadors." Many critics agree that the finest of the violoncello works is the Sonata in A. Op. 69, which saw the light in 1809. The inscription runs, "To my friend, Baron von Gleichenstein." The Sonata comprises an Allegro in A, a Scherzo in A Minor (somewhat. longer than Beethoven’s usual creations in this form), and a brief Adagio cantabile in E of only eighteen bars, leading direct into a very lively Allegro vivace in first movement form, and in which the first phrase of five notes is made a great deal of as the piece runs its joyous course. The two Sonatas in C and D, Op. 102, were written in 1815, and are dated "July" and "August." The autograph is inscribed "Freie Sonate," and they were published in Vienna in 1819. The second is dedicated to Countess von Erdody; the first has no dedication. The Adagio con molto sentimento d’affeto, of the Sonata in D, is a fine and characteristic movement, and the Allegro fugato-a three-part fugue founded on an ascending scale passage of one octaye-is led off by the violoncello. Marie Vandewart and Dorothy Davies will begin the series on Tuesday, August 28, with Sonata in F, Op. 5, No, 1.