Cello Sonata in C major Op.102 No.1 (1815)

Whatever the reason for Beethoven’s apparent reluctance to include a true slow movement in his cello sonatas, in this case at least it cannot have been because he didn’t trust the cellist to sustain a secure line. Both of the last two cello sonatas were written for one of the composer’s favourite instrumentalists at the time, Joseph Linke, cellist of the Schuppanzigh Quartet, to whom in the D major work, Op.102 No.2, he finally conceded a full-scale Adagio.

The absence of a slow movement in Op.102 No.1 is attributable more to Beethoven’s radical attitude to sonata form than to any lack of confidence in the cellist. It is an extraordinary interlocking structure consisting of two quick movements each preceded by a slow introduction, the central slow passage incorporating a thematic transformation which links the whole work together. The opening Andante is based on a Slavonic-sounding melody introduced in the first two bars by the cello. The imperious first subject of the A minor Allegro vivace has nothing thematically in common with the introduction. Nor does the second subject – apart, that is, from an espressivo phrase on the piano with the same intervals, though not the same rhythm, as the first four notes of the Slavonic melody. Scarcely noticeable at the time, that four-note phrase seems scarcely more significant when the cello plays it backwards, and twice repeats it, just before the end of the exposition. But significant it turns out to be.

The second movement begins with a deeply thoughtful Adagio in C major. It emerges from its ruminations with a lyrical inspiration on the cello and a reminiscence of the Slavonic melody, which is immediately reintroduced by the piano in the original Andante tempo. It is no coincidence that the four-note motif which is precipitated from this, as the main theme of the closing Allegro vivace, is none other than the cello’s backwards version of the four-note phrase from the Slavonic melody. The revelation inspires such exuberance, such wit and contrapuntal ingenuity, that there is scarcely room in the Allegro vivace for anything but the four-note motif in an apparently inexhaustible variety of transformations.

Of the nine cello sonatas written by the three great German composers who applied themselves to the form between 1796 and 1886, only two contain a true slow movement. Considering that, today, the cello is valued above all for the lyrical eloquence obtainable in high positions on the A string – a quality which is obviously put to best effect in a slow movement – the apparent reluctance of Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Brahms to indulge the instrument in that way is difficult to understand.

We know from Haydn’s two concertos that 18th-century cellists were quite capable of sustaining a high-lying melodic line. It is hardly likely that Jean-Pierre Duport, court cellist to Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia, for whom Beethoven wrote his first two Cello Sonatas – the earliest works of their kind by a major composer – was any less accomplished than Haydn’s cellists at Esterháza. Even so, while there are slow introductions in both the Prussian sonatas, neither amounts to a slow movement. Nor, still less, does the Andante cantabile introduction to the last movement of the Sonata in A major Op.69 that Beethoven wrote for the amateur cellist Ignaz von Gleichenstein in 1808. Seven years later, when he came to write his last two cello sonatas, for Joseph Linke, cellist of the Schuppanzigh Quartet, Beethoven finally relented – but in only one of the two works. Although the Sonata in D major Op.102 No.2 includes a full-scale Adagio, there is no equivalent in its companion in C major.

Clearly, since it was written for a favourite instrumentalist who was entrusted with an Adagio in the companion work in D major, the absence of a slow movement in Op.102 No.1 cannot be attributable to any lack of confidence in the cellist. It seems to have more to do with Beethoven’s radical attitude to sonata form at the time. The Sonata in C major is, in fact, an extraordinary interlocking structure consisting of two quick movements each preceded by a slow introduction. The whole work is linked by a central slow passage incorporating a crucial thematic transformation which both recalls earlier events and anticipates later ones.

The opening Andante is based on a Slavonic-sounding melody introduced in the first two bars by the cello. The imperious first subject of the A minor Allegro vivace has nothing thematically in common with the introduction. Nor does the second subject – apart, that is, from an espressivo phrase on the piano with the same melodic shape, though not the same rhythm, as the first four notes of the Slavonic melody. Scarcely noticeable at the time, that four-note phrase seems little more significant when the cello plays it backwards, and twice repeats it, just before the end of the exposition. But significant it turns out to be.

The second movement begins with a deeply thoughtful Adagio introduction in C major. It emerges from its ruminations with a lyrical inspiration on the cello and a reminiscence of the Slavonic melody, which is immediately recalled by the piano in the original Andante tempo. It is no coincidence that the four-note motif which is precipitated from this as the main theme of the following Allegro vivace is none other than the cello’s backwards version of the four-note phrase from the Slavonic melody. The revelation inspires such exuberance, such wit and contrapuntal ingenuity, that there is scarcely room from now on for anything but the four-note motif in an apparently inexhaustible variety of transformations.