A harbinger of “…strange new worlds of unearthly beauty”
…the making of Beethoven’s Cello Sonata in D Major Op. 102 No. 2
Steven Isserlis (York Chamber Music Festival Patron) writes, “… Beethoven transforms himself from confident virtuoso to supreme master of classical form, and then beyond that to a mystic exploring strange new worlds of unearthly beauty—a wondrous transfiguration.”
The five cello sonatas of Beethoven span his three creative epochs. All of the sonatas are important milestones from the first ‘thorough composed’ sonatas for cello and piano, essentially the start of its repertoire, to twenty years later in 1815 when he re-entered the realm of the cello sonata.
The two Op.102 cello sonatas are the gateway, the harbinger of ‘strange new worlds’ composed on the cusp of the so called ‘late period’. They come before the Ninth symphony, the late string quartets and just before the last four piano sonatas. The Op.102 cello sonatas contain elements typical of late period Beethoven including unconventional form, deeply probing emotional expression and experiential learning particularly his exploration of the fugue.
Beethoven’s return to the cello sonatas in 1815 was due to a fire.
On New Year’s Eve 1814, the Russian Count Razumovsky’s palace burned to the ground. His house string quartet, the Schuppanzigh Quartet, losing their main gig, disbanded. Thankfully the disenfranchised cellist Linke was known to Countess Marie Erdödy, a Hungarian noblewoman, who for many years had a close, if somewhat stormy, relationship with Beethoven. Her financial support (alongside Gleichenstein) gave Beethoven an annuity that supported him throughout his years in Vienna.
It was Marie Erdödy who commissioned Beethoven to compose for the benefit of their mutual friend, Linke. So from the ashes of Count Razumovsky’s burnt out palace came Beethoven’s Op.102 Cello Sonatas. From within his silent world - remembering that he was profoundly deaf – the mystic composer found music of ‘unearthly beauty’ welling up from the depths of what he called his ‘creative source’.
The Piece
The first movement of Opus 102 No. 2 is extremely compact and seems to dispense with anything unessential including any sort of introduction. It begins in great drama and the whole of the first movement builds on this minimal thematic material creating an heroic effect. Knowing that he was writing his last cello sonata Beethoven finally seems to touch the cosmos with the only slow movement in the set of five sonatas. Steven Isserlis describes it as “…a prayer that must surely be the most beautiful movement ever written for cello and piano.” Beethoven remembering the acoustic properties of the instrument he could no longer hear - or perhaps re-imagining it for the purpose of what he ‘heard’ in his inner ear – invents a new sound-world for the cello, a profound dolce.
The movement nearly concludes in final, dark resolution but it does not. At the last second, it makes a turn and runs, without pause (attacca), into the finale, Allegro fugato. Using a deceptively simple subject Beethoven weaves a short fugue that is both brief and complex; the mystic Beethoven saying farewell to his cello sonatas; a joyous celebration, ending as though snuffing out the candle. From within his silent world Beethoven shows us a depth of humanity beyond music, pointing to the moon.
