Cello Sonata in B Minor (1860)

completed by Michael Goldstein

Allegro

Pastorale: Andante dolce

Maestoso – Presto

The Cello Sonata in B minor is the earliest work by Borodin regularly performed in the concert hall. So, bearing in mind that he was largely self-taught as a musician, it is hardly surprising that a score written when he was still in his 20s    – he was involved in his day job as a scientist in Heidelberg at the time – is far from the most accomplished of its kind. It is, on the other hand, one of the most fascinating. Surely, no one before Borodin had based virtually the whole of a three-movement sonata on a theme by J.S.Bach.

The story goes that a violinist in the apartment next to Borodin’s was frequently to be heard practising Bach’s solo Sonata No.1 in G minor. Whatever the truth of that, the theme of the Fuga is presented (in B minor) in emphatic cello-and piano unison at the beginning of the Sonata and reappears countless times after that. While it is never developed in fugal form, it is subject to a variety of melodic and rhythmic transformations and is rarely absent. One of the most pleasing variants is the D major second subject of the first movement which, approached in such a way as to make the relationship with Bach entirely clear, is a melodious anticipation of the Borodin of, say, the String Quartet in D major. By way of his bold initiative of recapitulating it in the entirely “wrong” key of F major, Borodin has the opportunity to luxuriate in his melody once more, now in B major, before a final, characteristically emphatic recall of the Bach theme.

It seems unlikely that the lyrical opening theme of the Pastorale is deliberately derived from the Bach motif, even though they have    a prominent phrase in common. Borodin has clearly not forgotten the Bach element, however. After the exposition of two main themes, featuring opposite extremes of the cello range, he reintroduces it in octaves in the piano right hand and then incorporates it in an unconventional central cadenza – a reminder that Borodin himself was an accomplished cellist.

Exactly what the composer had in mind for the third movement we cannot be sure: the manuscript of the Sonata is incomplete and it looks as though he never actually finished it. Thanks, however, to the imaginative work of the Russian musician Michael Goldstein – who, having found that “all the important themes and the exposition of the third movement are there,” published a putative complete version in 1982 – we have a good idea.

Actually, even without the sketches, we might have guessed how the third movement begins. The slower contrasting material which follows the opening Bach episode is less predictable, however. The big chords in the pianist’s right hand and the ambitious arpeggios in the left are like nothing else in the work. But then, as the cello takes over the new idea, the piano sets a reminder of the Bach theme in rhythmically ingenious counterpoint against it. So the generative motif is still there somewhere in the texture, ready to re-emerge and, in the final bars,    to assume its most emphatic manifestation of all.