1750-1799 Cello & Keyboard

Question 0

How many cello sonatas did Boccherini write?

Answer 0

• About 32 sonatas are known. Perhaps the most famous of the Boccherini cello sonatas is the A major.
• Much of his chamber music follows models established by Joseph Haydn; however, Boccherini is often credited with improving Haydn’s model of the string quartet by bringing the cello to prominence, whereas Haydn had frequently relegated it to an accompaniment role.

Question 1

Name 7 works for cello & keyboard ca.1750-1799

Answer 1

1. Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach: Sonata for Viola da gamba and keyboard in g (1759)
2. Luigi Boccherini: Sonata for cello and basso continuo in c (ca.1770)
3. Jean-Baptiste Breval: Sonata in C, Op.40, No.1 (ca.1795)
4. Ludwig van Beethoven: Sonata for cello and piano, Op.5, No.1 in F (1796)
5. Ludwig van Beethoven: Sonata for cello and piano, Op.5, No.2 in g (1796)
6. Ludwig van Beethoven: 12 Variations in F on Mozart’s “Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen” for cello and piano, Op.66 (1796)
7. Ludwig van Beethoven: 12 Variations in G on Handel’s “See, the Conqu’ring Hero comes” for cello and piano, WoO45 (1796)

Question 2

Piece: Cello and keyboard work by Boccherini.

Answer 2

• Composer: Luigi Boccherini
• Title: Sonata for cello and basso continuo in c
• Date: ca.1770
• About 32 sonatas are known. Perhaps the most famous of the Boccherini cello sonatas is the A major (not this sonata).
• Well after these sonatas were written, around 1785, Boccherini entered the the service of Friedrich Wilhelm, nephew of Frederick the great, who succeeded his uncle as King of Prussia in 1787, as court composer.
• Boccherini’s style is completely characteristic of the period in which he lived, the period that is of Haydn (rather than that of Mozart or Beethoven). He enjoyed a reputation for his facility as a composer, leaving some 460 compositions. A great deal of his music is designed to exploit the technical resources of the cello including a remarkable series of works for string quintet with two cellos, the first of which is given a concertante part.
• For Boccherini, we enter a time where the instrument’s potential had been released, thanks to that composer’s technical prowess, including the extensive use of thumb position. The four sonatas are tours de force, often requiring extreme ranges and double- or triple-stop passages. However, the composer himself makes almost no mention of them. It is as if these sonatas meant hardly more to him than a daily stretching exercise for an experienced cellist, as if they were mere finger exercises by a composer who had mastered this instrument in all its subtleties.
• 1. ?
• 2. Evocative of a funeral march. This movement strongly exudes galant style or synonymously empfindsamer Stil (‘sensitive style’) which was favoured by composers of the late 18th century which was intended to express “true and natural” feelings, and featuring sudden contrasts of mood. It was developed as a contrast to the Baroque Affektenlehre (lit. The Doctrine of Affections), in which a composition (or movement) would have the same affect, or emotion, throughout. Boccherini is considered a consumer rather than one of the original producers of the style galant.
• 3. It is followed by a quick movement in Sturm und Drang spirit, a style which is often attributed to the works of Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart from the late 1760s to early 1770s. Haydn’s works during this period often feature a newly impassioned or agitated element. Mozart’s Symphony No. 25 (the ‘Little’ G-minor symphony, 1773) is another example.

Question 3

Piece: Cello and keyboard work by Breval

Answer 3

• Composer: Jean-Baptiste Breval
• Title: Sonata in C, Op.40, No.1
• Date: ca.1795
• Breval was a french cellist who studied with Cupis and Berteau, and was an active cello teacher. Most of his pieces include the cello with a prominent role, and are often used as pedagogical tools for student development.
• This piece has become widely known mostly in part to its inclusion in the immensely popular Suzuki teaching method books. It is a student piece usually used for beginning to intermediate-level cellists. The first movement is especially useful because it offers a wide variety of articulations, triple and quadruple-stopped chords, and several rhythmic challenges such as sudden changes between duple and triple groupings. Combined with these challenges is the opportunity to develop control while playing in quick tempos and with sudden dynamic changes. To facilitate these predominantly bow-related techniques, the left hand remains in first position for most of the first movement.

Question 4

Piece: Cello and keyboard work by Beethoven, first sonata.

Answer 4

• Composer: Ludwig van Beethoven
• Title: Sonata for cello and piano, Op.5, No.1 in F
• Date: 1796
• Both of the Op.5 sonatas are in two movements, with an extended Adagio introduction preceding the opening Allegro of each piece.
• The first of the two Opus 5 sonatas, the Sonata in F major, extends traditional practice, to the surprise of some of Beethoven’s less sophisticated contemporaries, in allowing a balanced share of the music to both cello and piano. The cello had, in any case, tended to occupy a subsidiary role in the sonata repertoire, its range presenting certain technical difficulties, admirably solved by Beethoven, at least in the sonatas and variations.
• 1. The sonata opens with a slow introductory passage of 34 bars, leading to an Allegro of prodigal melodic invention. The opening theme is given first to the piano, echoed by the cello, followed by a second subject moving through new keys, before the piano is permitted a passage of concertante display. The central development opens with the first subject now in A major and then in D minor, before other harmonic possibilities are explored, followed by the customary return of the opening material. A second inversion of the tonic chord heralds a cadenza, opening contrapuntally and containing a sudden Adagio, succeeded by a rapid and brief excursion into triplet rhythms, marked Presto, before the final appearance of the principal theme.
• 2. The cello opens the second movement of the two movements, closely followed in canonic imitation by the piano. Here again the concertante element prevails, with an infectiously rhythmic B-flat minor central episode in which the plucked notes of the cello accompany the piano. Momentary relaxation of mood gives way to a passage of brilliant display before the tonic chord is finally and emphatically established.

Question 5

Piece: Cello and keyboard work by Beethoven, early set on theme by Mozart

Answer 5

• Composer: Ludwig van Beethoven
• Title: 12 Variations in F on Mozart’s “Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen” for cello and piano, Op.66
• Date: 1796
• a richly diverse tapestry of contrasting emotions and technical challenges - no doubt with expert advice from Jean-Louis Duport - advice which must have contributed greatly to his confidence when writing the virtuoso cello part in the Triple Concerto and the three later mature cello sonatas (Op.69 and Op.102, Nos.1-2).
• In both sets from 1796, the variations conclude with an Adagio and a final Rondo.
• From Mozart’s The Magic Flute, “Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen” (‘A girl or little wife’) is sung by Papageno, the pleasant bird-catcher. He, unworthy of enlightenment that will come to Prince Tamino after his initiation, has one wish, for a wife.

Question 6

Piece: Cello and keyboard work by Beethoven, second sonata.

Answer 6

• Composer: Ludwig van Beethoven
• Title: Sonata for cello and piano, Op.5, No.2 in g
• Date: 1796
• Both of the Op.5 sonatas are in two movements, with an extended Adagio introduction preceding the opening Allegro of each piece.
• 1. An expressive and more extended Adagio is imbued with drama, alternating with moments of lyricism. There is a sudden silence before the lively Allegro, in which the two instruments share the opening theme, with the cello taking initial charge of the second theme. The central development opens, as the Allegro had at first seemed to, in C minor, and here, as throughout, there is ample chance for display, particularly in the piano writing, reflecting the composer’s ability as a performer. This is followed by the expected recapitulation, including the dramatic return of the closing section, followed by a coda of more varied mood.
• 2. In the final Rondo the piano presents the main theme, the cello coming into its own with its version of the first episode and then with the main theme. The heart of the movement is in C major, but the key of G major (tonic major) is finally established in music of varying mood that has allowed both players a chance to show technical brilliance.

Question 7

Piece: Cello and keyboard work by Beethoven, early set on theme by Handel

Answer 7

• Composer: Ludwig van Beethoven
• Title: 12 Variations in G on Handel’s “See, the Conqu’ring Hero comes” for cello and piano, WoO45
• Date: 1796
• a richly diverse tapestry of contrasting emotions and technical challenges - no doubt with expert advice from Jean-Louis Duport - advice which must have contributed greatly to his confidence when writing the virtuoso cello part in the Triple Concerto and the three later mature cello sonatas (Op.69 and Op.102, Nos.1-2).
• In both sets from 1796, the variations conclude with an Adagio and a final Rondo.
• The theme of this set of variations was taken from the famous chorus from Part III of Handel’s Judas Maccabaeus oratorio (1746), and were dedicated to Princess Lichnowsky.
• Custom is followed in an elaborately ornamented Adagio, leading to a final 3/8 Allegro.

Question 8

Piece: Cello and keyboard work by CPE Bach.

Answer 8

• Composer: Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
• Title: Sonata for Viola da gamba and keyboard in g
• Date: 1759
• C.P.E. Bach’s three sonatas were written for gambist Ludwig Christian Hesse of Frederick the Great’s court chapel.
• Hesse later served as both musician and legal adviser to the cello-playing nephew to Frederick the Great, who succeeded to the Prussian throne as Friedrich Wilhelm II (patron of Beethoven and Mozart).
• Sonatas for viol and keyboard remained a genre favoured in north Germany rather longer than elsewhere before it was set to the side.
• follows the pattern of Johann Sebastian Bach’s sonatas for viola da gamba and harpsichord and his organ trio sonatas. Instead of the essentially two-voice texture of the two earlier sonatas, the G minor sonata presents a three-voice texture, filled out with chords in the keyboard part, suggested by figuration of the bass line. This allows elements of contrapuntal imitation, a particular feature of the last movement.

Question 9

Describe the roles of the cello and piano in Beethoven’s early cello works.

Answer 9

• In the early 19th century, sonatas for piano and instrument were usually advertised as piano sonatas with instrumental accompaniment. The cello sonata was especially so plagued, as it grew out of sonatas for continuo; as late as the beginning of the 19th century it was still common for the cello in cello sonatas to double the left hand of the piano part, with the piano right hand playing obbligato figurations and melodies. Beethoven, indeed, is credited with composing the first cello sonatas with a written-out piano part.

Question 10

Describe the commission of the first two Beethoven cello sonatas including the name of the cellist for whom it was written.

Answer 10

• Commissioned by the King of Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm II, an ardent music-lover, keen cellist, and patron of Beethoven’s.
• Although Jean-Pierre Duport was one of the King’s teachers, it is now thought to have been his brother Jean-Louis Duport who had the honor of premiering these sonatas.