1800-1849 Cello & Piano, Technical Studies Flashcards
0
Q
Name 7 pieces for cello & piano ca.1800-1849.
A
- Ludwig van Beethoven: Sonata for cello and piano, Op.69 in A (1808)
- Ludwig van Beethoven: Sonata No.1 in C for cello and piano, Op.102 (1815)
- Ludwig van Beethoven: Sonata No.2 in D for cello and piano, Op.102 (1815)
- Franz Schubert: “Arpeggione” Sonata (transcribed for cello and piano, 1824)
- Felix Mendelssohn: Sonata No. 2 in D for cello and piano, Op.58 (1842–43)
- Frédéric Chopin: Sonata for cello and piano, Op.65 in g (1845)
- Robert Schumann: Fantasiestücke for cello and piano, Op.73 (originally for clarinet and piano, 1849)
1
Q
Name 3 pieces for cello and piano by Chopin.
A
Frédéric Chopin
- Introduction et polonaise brillante for cello and piano, Op.3 (1829)
- Grand Duo concertant in E (1832)
- Sonata for cello and piano, Op.65 in g (1845)
2
Q
Name 3 pieces for cello and piano by Schumann (including transcriptions).
A
Robert Schumann
- Adagio and Allegro for cello and piano, Op.70 (originally for horn and piano, 1849)
- Fantasiestücke for cello and piano, Op.73 (originally for clarinet and piano, 1849)
- Fünf Stücke im Volkston for cello and piano, Op.102 (1849)
3
Q
Name 3 pieces for cello and piano by Schumann (including transcriptions).
A
Robert Schumann
- Adagio and Allegro for cello and piano, Op.70 (originally for horn and piano, 1849)
- Fantasiestücke for cello and piano, Op.73 (originally for clarinet and piano, 1849)
- Fünf Stücke im Volkston for cello and piano, Op.102 (1849)
4
Q
Piece: cello & piano by Beethoven, 3rd sonata
A
- Composer: Ludwig van Beethoven
- Title: Sonata for cello and piano, Op.69 in A
- Date: 1808
- Nikolaus Kraft gave the premiere, however the sonata was dedicated to Ignaz von Gleichenstein, a keen amateur cellist and ‘a man of the greatest probity and… the kindest of men.’
- he negotiated the all-important-contract agreed by Archduke Rudolph, Prince Lobkowitz, and Prince Kinsky designed to keep Beethoven in Vienna when he was considering a lucrative offer from the King of Westphalia. According to the numerous letters Beethoven wrote to Gleichenstein, their friendship was especially warm.
- The benchmark by which duo sonatas for cello and piano have come to be judged ever since, from Mendelssohn and Brahms to Debussy, Shostakovich, and beyond. Beethoven had become increasingly interested in advanced cello techniques, writing a particularly showy part for the Triple Concerto (Op.58), a work which must have contributed significantly to the virtuoso and other elements in the sonata. Judging by the innumerable alteration and experiments revealed in his sketchbook, he took even more trouble than usual over this important addition to the new genre which he himself had created - an impression confirmed by yet further alterations in the surviving autograph of the first movement, all the more surprising considering the sonata’s apparent spontaneity and lyrical flow.
- In this sonata, one of his greatest celebrations of melody, Beethoven explored the character of the cello, its musical and technical possibilities, more deeply than either of his great Classical predecessors had done. Melodic material is scrupulously shared between the piano and the three voices of the cello - bass, tenor, and alto - matching all but the highest octaves of the piano’s range. As in the Kreutzer Sonata, short cadenzas and virtuoso passages for each instrument add zest and brilliance, and the subsidiary material is as varied for the cello as it is for the piano.
- The first movement opens with the cello alone; variations of its expansive main theme and a pair of contrasting secondary ideas give much cause to contrapuntal and melodic interplay between the two players.
- The scherzo which follows, in the tonic minor (A minor), prominently features off-beat (syncopation) accents and deeply troubling violent contrasts; the trio in major is heard twice as in many of Beethoven’s later scherzos.
- The briskly-paced finale is preceded by a short slow introduction; the form of the sonata thus resembles that of works such as the Archduke Trio, where the scherzo precedes a slow movement linked to the fast finale.
- In all three sets of variations, Beethoven created 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).
5
Q
Piece: cello & piano by Beethoven, 4th sonata
A
- Composer: Ludwig van Beethoven
- Title: Sonata No.1 in C for cello and piano, Op.102
- Date: 1815
- Dedicated to the Countess Erdődy
- his deafness became overwhelmingly profound and his productivity diminished. Following seven years after the A Major Sonata No. 3, the complexity of their composition and their visionary character marks the start of Beethoven’s late period.
- This short, almost enigmatic work demonstrates in concentrated form how Beethoven was becoming ready to challenge and even subvert the sonata structures he inherited from Haydn and Mozart.
- Its overall structure is possibly unique in Beethoven’s works, comprising just a pair of fast sonata-form movements, each with a slow introduction. Both movements recall the long-established convention of a slow introduction to a brisk main section in sonata form, but with significant modifications.
- In the first movement the introductory portion entirely lacks the portentiousness of a conventional slow introduction, consisting of a brief elegiac theme repeated several times without change of key and largely unvaried; it concludes with an elaborate cadence in C major that is then contradicted by the sonata portion being in the relative minor, largely avoiding the key of C major except at the opening of the development.
- The second movement opens more in the manner of a traditional slow introduction, and eventually leads to a sonata-form portion in the ‘correct’ key of C. However before this point is reached, the opening material of the sonata reappears for a final, almost ecstatic variation; a procedure paralleled elsewhere in Beethoven’s work only in the drama of the fifth and ninth symphonies.
6
Q
Piece: cello & piano by Beethoven, 5th sonata
A
- Composer: Ludwig van Beethoven
- Title: Sonata No.2 in D for cello and piano, Op.102
- Date: 1815
- Dedicated to the Countess Erdődy
- his deafness became overwhelmingly profound and his productivity diminished. Following seven years after the A Major Sonata No. 3, the complexity of their composition and their visionary character marks the start of Beethoven’s late period.
- While this sonata is more accessible and conventionally structured than the C major cello sonata, the concluding fugue prefigures the fugal finales of the late string quartets.
- There are no fewer than seven themes and motives in the first movement alone. The first motive, which Schubert surely remembered a decade later when he composed the Death and the Maiden string quartet, introduces not only the movement as a whole, but each formal paragraph as well.
- The only full slow movement in Beethoven’s cello sonatas.
- the first example in his chamber music of a movement entirely focused on fugue. As his renewed enthusiasm for Bach became ‘a veritable contrapuntal obsession during his last decade,’ other fugal movements would follow. However, with the exception of the Grosse Fuge, none are so uncompromising as this movement. As ever, dynamics play a vital part, not least in ensuring clarity of texture.
- There are two very different subjects in this double fugue. The first presides over the movement as a whole, and three motives from it act as useful signposts to guide the listener through numerous subsidiary patterns woven into the movement’s intricate fabric. The second subject appears much later in the movement, but when eventually the two subjects are combined, it is clear that, for all their differences, they belong to each other in some kind of mystic union.
- Beethoven may also have had a more personal union in mind. The second fugue subject has a distinguished history, appearing in Handel’s Messiah, Bach’s Musical Offering, Haydn’s String Quartet Op.20 No.5, and Mozart’s Requiem, among other masterpieces. So it may not be too far-fetched to regard its inclusion in this ‘musicians music’ as Beethoven’s graceful acknowledgement of his debt to Handel, Bach, Haydn, and Mozart, while at the same time laying claim to his own seat with them at the high table.
7
Q
Piece: cello & piano by Schubert
A
- Composer: Franz Schubert
- Title: “Arpeggione” Sonata (transcribed for cello and piano)
- Date: 1824
- The sonata is the only substantial composition for the arpeggione (which was essentially a bowed guitar) which remains extant today.
- Developed in 1823 by the Viennese guitar luthier Johann Georg Staufer (1778–1853). Also known as the bowed guitar/bogen-guitarre, guitarre d’amour, and guitarre-violoncell.
- It was a fretted instrument with six strings tuned exactly like a classical guitar (E–A–D–G–B–E) and held vertically between the knees.
- Its body shape was also similar to a guitar, with smooth rather than pointed violin corners.
- Because the instrument lacked an endpin, it was held between the knees like a viola da gamba.
- The most striking of innovations, however, was the “flying fingerboard,” which allowed the performer to set the action of the instrument according to his taste by raising or lowering the height of the fingerboard.
- It belongs to the same period as the Death and the Maiden Quartet, when Schubert was suffering from the advanced stages of syphilis and lapsing into increasingly frequent episodes of depression.
- By the time the sonata was published posthumously in 1871, the enthusiasm for the novelty of the arpeggione had long since vanished, together with the instrument itself (it only remained in use for just over 10 years).
- Transcribers have attempted to address the problems posed by the smaller playing range of these alternative instruments, in comparison with the arpeggione, as well as the attendant modifications in articulation (4 versus 6 strings).
8
Q
Piece: cello & piano by Mendelssohn, 2nd sonata
A
- Composer: Felix Mendelssohn
- Title: Sonata No. 2 in D for cello and piano, Op.58
- Date: 1842–43
- Dedicated to the Russian/Polish cellist Count Mateusz Wielhorski.
- Of particular interest is the third movement (Adagio), because it mirrors Mendelssohn’s fascination with the music of J. S. Bach. (He was then musical director of the Gewandhaus concerts at Leipzig and, as such, Bach’s distant successor.) The movement consists of a chorale in Bach’s typical style, played by the piano in rich arpeggios. In between the phrases of the chorale, the cello plays recitative-like passages.
- Mendelssohn performed his second cello sonata, written in 1843, in London in 1845 with the cellist Piatti. The highly characteristic D major first movement starts in a splendidly cheerful mood, moving forward to a less robust second subject. There is an exciting central development section, followed by a fuller recapitulation and histrionic coda. The B minor second movement is a scherzo, its lightness of mood stressed by the plucked notes of the cello. A brief slow movement in G major with widespread arpeggiated piano chords; offers a chorale on which the cello meditates in a passionate recitative. The sonata ends with a finale of rapid brilliance.
9
Q
Piece: cello & piano by Chopin
A
- Composer: Frédéric Chopin
- Title: Sonata for cello and piano, Op.65 in g
- Date: 1845
- written for Auguste Franchomme who was also the dedicatee
- first publicly performed by Franchomme and Chopin at the composer’s last public concert
- Franchomme forged close friendships with Felix Mendelssohn and Frédéric Chopin.
- It was the last of Chopin’s works to be published in his lifetime.
- ‘I write a little and cross out a lot’, Chopin wrote to his sister during the composition of his final major work, the Cello Sonata in G minor Op 65, written in Paris in 1845 and 1846. - ‘Sometimes I am pleased with it, sometimes not. I throw it into a corner and then pick it up again.’ No work of his gave him more trouble, as manifested by the extensive sketches.
- The sonata is remarkable for the concentration of its material: much of the music of the first movement grows out of the cello’s opening statement, and certain theme-shapes appear in all its movements.
- the Scherzo derived from material in the first movement
- the Largo is only 27 measures long and is the expressive center of the sonata
10
Q
Name 3 technical studies ca.1800-1849.
A
- Justus Friedrich Dotzauer: 113 Etudes for solo cello (ca.1830)
- Jean-Louis Duport: 21 Etudes for solo cello, Instruction on Fingering and Bowing (1806)
- Auguste Franchomme: 12 Caprices for solo cello (ca.1835)
11
Q
Who was Jean-Louis Duport?
A
Jean-Louis Duport (1749–1819)
- Most famous for his 21 Etudes for solo cello, Instruction on Fingering and Bowing (1806); it is a seminal work of cello technique.
- Beethoven’s Cello Sonatas Nos. 1 in F & 2 in g, Op.5 (1796) (and likely the two early sets of variations) were written for and premiered by Jean-Louis Duport.
- Known as ‘Duport the Younger’ to distinguish him from his older brother (and teacher) Jean-Pierre (1741-1818, also teacher of Friedrich Wilhelm, nephew of Frederick the great, who succeeded his uncle as King of Prussia in 1787).
12
Q
Who was Romberg?
A
Bernhard Romberg (1767-1841)
- One of Beethoven’s cellists (though he isn’t known for having premiered any of Beethoven’s major cello works).
- Romberg made several innovations in cello design and performance. For instance, he lengthened the cello’s fingerboard and flattened the side under the C string, thus giving it more freedom to vibrate.
- Romberg is responsible for simplifying cello notation to only three clefs, the bass clef, the tenor clef and the treble clef. Until his time, it was common to use many clefs for multiple uses - the 18th century cellist-composer Luigi Boccherini used as many as six clefs in his compositions.
- It has been suggested that Romberg’s cello sonata in E minor was a strong influence on the first cello sonata in E minor by Johannes Brahms (however this seems unlikely?).
13
Q
Who was the younger Kraft?
A
Nikolaus Kraft (son of Antonín Kraft, 1778-1853)
- also Haydn’s cellist, as his father was
- Premiered works by Ludwig van Beethoven: Sonata for cello and piano, Op.69 in A (1808), Triple Concerto for Piano, Violin and Cello in C, Op.58 (1814)
- This works was written for his father, but he premiered it.
14
Q
Who was Linke?
A
Josef Linke (1783-1837)
- He took part in the first performances of many of Ludwig van Beethoven’s chamber works.
- Ignaz Schuppanzigh, Josef Linke, and Beethoven gave the first performances of Beethoven’s
- 2 piano trios, Op.70 (1808)
- Piano Trio “Archduke”, Op.97 (1814)
- Linke worked with Beethoven when he was sketching Cello Sonatas Nos. 4 & 5, Op.102 (1815)
- Linke was cellist in the Schuppanzigh String Quartet which was commissioned by Prince Razumovsky. They premiered many of Beethoven and Schubert’s string quartets.
