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Dude...... :)
By the end of 1816, the string quartet that had premiered all of Beethoven’s quartets broke up as several of its members left town for better jobs. Joseph Linke, the cellist, headed for a job in Hungary, and Lou wrote a pair of cello sonatas for him as a farewell tribute. These would be his last sonatas for piano and cello, and in fact Beethoven was about to finish his last solo piano sonatas.
Beethoven was rethinking the entire concept of the sonata. In his late sonatas, movements link to each other without interruption, and there are recalls of prior material as the piece progresses. In my traversal of Beethoven’s piano sonatas last year, I showed how the late sonatas bent the entire sonata concept into something new and integrated. This sonata is a part of that transmogrification. Like a lot of Beethoven’s late works, this sonata is short and compact. Outwardly, it appears to be in four movements, but it’s actually in two movements where each has a long introduction.
The piece starts with a long introduction in C Major, which is how the sonata received its key designator. But like the “Kreutzer” Violin Sonata, the real business of the sonata, the actual movement in sonata format, is in A minor. Musical conventions can be funny at times. This introduction is marked “andante” in 6/8 with a theme for solo cello. The piano continues the cello’s thoughts, erasing the line between instruments that defined the sonatas of Haydn and Mozart. But just when you think all is going to be peace, love and happiness, Lou switches to “allegro,” 2/2 and A minor for the real sonata movement. The second subject is in E minor. The exposition is repeated. Development is in C Major and a few other keys, a short, compact development, and the recap returns to A minor. The second subject appears in the correct key of A minor, and the end is decisive.
There is another long introduction that floats between C Major and A minor in 4/4 time, marked “adagio.” It even brings back the first movement introduction. But then it tears into a monothematic finale marked “allegro vivace” in 2/4 and C Major. His middle section is a fugue in A-flat, repeated in D-flat. The end is a playful joke.
Tomorrow night it’s the last cello sonata.
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Dudess! It rained here for almost an entire week.....a thunderstorm in each afternoon.
Suffer with the heat! *snicker*
