Following a spectacular year in 1812 with the Symphony No. 7 (Day 253), Symphony No. 8 (Day 255), and the Violin Sonata No. 10 (Day 257), Beethoven seemed to have experienced what Lewis Lockwood has termed “a creative and psychological crisis.” Perhaps it was related to the Immortal Beloved letter, also from 1812. Lockwood cites “the truly barren year of 1813” as “the most unproductive to date in Beethoven’s lifetime … a year of absolute artistic impotence.”
The year 1814 was also bleak: Aside from patriotic potboilers and “Fidelio” (Day 266) — which was largely a revision of an earlier work — the only substantial new composition in 1814 was the “beautiful and heartfelt” Piano Sonata No. 27 (Day 90).
The “emergence” from this crisis occurred in 1815 with the composition of the two Opus 102 Cello Sonatas. (Lewis Lockwood, “Beethoven’s Emergence from Crisis: The Cello Sonatas of Op. 102 (1815),” Journal of Musicology, Vol. 16, No. 3, jstor.org/stable/763993)
Beethoven had essentially invented the Sonata for Cello and Piano in 1796 (Day 75f) and then made great progress in balancing these two hopelessly disparate instruments in the Cello Sonata No. 3 (Day 209). The two Opus 102 Cello Sonatas represent another great leap.
Beethoven dated the first of the Opus 102 Cello Sonatas at the end of July 1815, and the second in early August, but he may have worked on them for some additional months. The two works are contrasting: the first is in the form of a fantasia; the second uses traditional forms.
The first of the two Opus 102 Cello Sonatas is labeled in sketches as a “free sonata,” alluding to its improvisatory nature. One indication how it undermines traditional forms is that nobody can agree whether the sonata has four movements, five movements, or just two parts!
Jan Swafford identifies several characteristics of the Opus 102 Cello Sonatas that are harbingers of his late music, including a
“Poetic stream of consciousness: The impression of a clear dramatic narrative has receded, replaced by a sense of music seemingly capable of going anywhere from anywhere, changing direction in a second, the emotional effect powerfully evocative but often mysterious unto magical.” (“Beethoven,” p. 681)
This is particularly true of Opus 102, No. 1 — the Cello Sonata No. 4.
#Beethoven250 Day 287
Cello Sonata No. 4 in C Major (Opus 102, No. 1), 1815
The great cellist Steven Isserlis and pianist Peter Evans in a TV performance.
The Cello Sonata No. 4 begins with a 6/8 Andante that presents most of the sonata’s thematic material in a two-measure passage for solo cello. The remainder drifts in a beautiful dreamlike trance, too long for an introduction but too short for a true movement.
The opening Andante of the Cello Sonata No. 4 goes without pause into an Allegro Vivace that begins with an aggressive quasi-martial dotted-rhythm theme but with some startling mood swings of mysterious beauty.
The second movement (and the first part) of the Cello Sonata No. 4 ends with a fermata rest, indicating that the next movement shouldn’t start attacca, but with only a short break. (However, it seems that most performers take a true end-of-movement mood-breaking pause here.)
The second part of the Cello Sonata No. 4 begins Adagio. Some people count this Adagio as a separate movement, but it’s only nine measure in length. It’s followed by an even shorter Andante (seven measures) that recalls the first-movement Andante.
At various times in his compositional life — but particularly around the time of the Opus 102 Cello Sonatas —Beethoven explored the effect of recalling earlier movements, not as a sonata-like recapitulation but more like an evocative reminiscence of times gone by. Musicologist Elaine Sisman explores this trend in her essay “Memory and Invention at the Threshold of Beethoven’s Late Style” in the book Beethoven and His World. This concept would culminate in an astonishing way in the last movement of the 9th Symphony.
The Allegro Vivace finale that follows directly from the second Andante in the Cello Sonata No. 4 expresses the joy that Beethoven must have felt in finally composing a work of true intricacy and beauty after so much simplistic patriotic bombast.
#Beethoven250 Day 287
Cello Sonata No. 4 in C Major (Opus 102, No. 1), 1815
Two Russian greats: Cellist Mstislav Rostropovich and pianist Sviatoslav Richter, probably from the early 1960s when they recorded the Beethoven Cello Sonatas.