Hyperion Records

Six years after writing the Sonata in A major Op 69, Beethoven wanted his late sonatas to express greater ‘variety’ in their musical resources. In the autograph manuscript of the Sonata in C major Op 102 No 1, his annotation ‘Freje Sonate’ (Free sonata) already announces a new orientation. The two-movement form of this sonata is much stricter and more condensed in structure than that of the early sonatas. It is true that Beethoven had already successfully carried out the idea of having the first fast movement follow on directly from the slow introduction in his Op 5 sonatas. However, now he does not merely assign the cello short rhythmic interjections as an introduction, but lets it play a wonderful cantabile theme which is at once taken up by the piano. The two instruments then engage in dialogue around this theme, which will be recalled in surprising fashion at a later point, in the middle of the sonata. In this introductory Andante, Beethoven uses the stylistic device of the fermata in four different ways, thus creating an intense impression that both instruments are pausing in contemplation. The Allegro vivace in A minor, which follows without a break, shatters this meditative atmosphere and impresses with its sheer rhythmic force. In order to accommodate the explosive energy of the movement in dynamic terms, Beethoven marked the cello and piano parts fortissimo here; this is the only time this marking will appear in the entire sonata. The eruptive rhetoric is only briefly interrupted by lyrical phrases on cello and piano, which however are once more whipped up to impulsive violence by means of sforzati, triplets and semiquavers, and bring the movement to an abrupt conclusion.

The ensuing Adagio initially sets a deeply contemplative mood, but the urgent hemidemisemiquaver passagework soon engenders an inward, tension-filled dialogue featuring menacing sforzati in the cello and piano parts. After eight bars, the tension is resolved in a diminuendo leading to one of the most moving phrases in the whole cycle of sonatas. Here we are offered a melody in G major of the utmost fervour and simplicity, which Beethoven marks teneramente, ‘tenderly’. After the quotation of the sonata’s opening theme mentioned above, a trill shared by cello and piano introduces the finale, Allegro vivace. In his first autograph draft of this movement Beethoven originally intended the main theme as a fugue subject, but subsequently rejected the idea. Only in his final sonata was he to realize this project, weaving a dense contrapuntal texture in its last movement. In his finished version of the Allegro vivace, hopeful, questioning motifs develop into a theme of boisterous, rustic strength, as if firmly rooted in the soil. All that remains of Beethoven’s idea of a fugal texture is a brief episode midway through the movement, after the first ghostly point of repose, which nonetheless offers a foretaste of the path he was to follow in the finale of his great D major sonata. The last movement of the present sonata is dominated by bold alternation between the rustic dance rhythms and eerie moments of repose. The coda features a brilliant stream of rising triplets in C major in which the cello is required to play in its highest register. Here once more the composer combines the full force of the two instruments. After a last lyrical phrase recalling the start of the movement, a rapid semiquaver passage and two chords bring the sonata to an unexpected close with almost coarse humour.

from notes by Daniel Müller-Schott © 2010
English: Charles Johnston