Beethoven - The Sonatas For Piano And Cello - Rostropovich, Richter - Vinyl

	£		25
	$		33

Beethoven - The Sonatas For Piano And Cello - Rostropovich, Richter - Vinyl.
Despatched by Royal Mail Second Class.
All in very good condition, except some marking on the interior of the outer sleeve - as shown in pictures.
Side 1 No. 1 in F major Op. 5/1 1. Adagio sostenuto - Allegro - 16:27 2. Rondo (Allegro vivace) - 6:30
No. 4 in C major Op. 102/1 1. Andante - Allegro vivace - 7:35
Side 2 2. Adagio - Tempo d'andante - Allegro vivace - 6:45
No. 5 in D major Op. 102/2 1. Allegro con brio - 6:17 2. Adagio con molto sentimento d'affetto - 3. Allegro - Allegro fugato - 11:32
Side 3 No. 2 in G minor Op. 5/2 1. Adagio sostenuto ed espressivo -      Allegro molto piu tosto presto - 19:50 2. Rondo (Allegro) - 7:06
Side 4 No.3 in A Major Op.69 1. Allegro ma non tanto - 11:42 2. Scherzo (Allegro molto) - 5:26 3. Adagio cantabile - Allegro vivace - 8:23
That Beethoven could have written five cello sonatas where his immediate German predecessors, Haydn and Mozart, wrote none, presupposed that the cello was just then receiving a respectability it had not previously enjoyed.
Far more than a single playwright even, the composer relies on performances; and it is significant that however urgently Beethoven sought to express something new, he inevitably allowed for the fact that expression could never seriously outstrip the capacities of the exponential means to hand. Piano sonata, violin sonata, string quartet, and concerto: all these, as Beethoven's career progressed, continued to carry the weight of his expanding needs for the simple reason that they had to. Executant musicians had fallen into and accepted these groupings and to that extent Beethoven was always their prisoner. If the cello sonatas announce, therefore, a relatively new voice in the solo ranks, we may safely look beyond any question of abstract inspiration. The cello, obviously, had "arrived" in a way that made it possible to exploit it and the questions we must ask are how and why.
Broadly speaking, the answer is that Beethoven reached maturity at a moment when the cello, having emerged victor in its lengthy war with the viola da gamba, was a matter of sufficient virtuoso interest to make its promotion to solo status a viable proposition, not to say a next natural step. It had, of course frequently been used as a solo instrument, but the tradition was scattered, uncertain and piecemeal, the compositions not always memorable, and virtuoso performers had been infrequent and isolated. Some idea of the general raggedness of the advance may be grasped from the fact that in 1740, Hubert Le Blanc, in France, could still tilt confidently against the upstart pretensions of the cello; and that in the same year, the great Italian virtuoso Franciscello (Francesco Alborea), the cellist whose technique had so far as Italy was concerned killed the claims of the viola da gamba for good and all, was not so far from the end of a long career.
In the end, however, the cello traditions of France and Italy were closely enough linked. Batistin, the man who influenced Berteau, later the teacher of the great Jean-Louis Duport, had long since brought Franciscello's portamento  techniques to France where, without fuss, they took root. And before he died, Franciscello had given Jean-Pierre Duport, the brother of Jean-Louis, a demonstration of cello mastery which sent him back to Paris in a state of excitement destined to last, to all intents and purposes, for the rest of his life.
Nevertheless, the stage was only set for the cello's full emergence when Jean-Pierre Duport went as first cellist to the court of Friedrich Wilhelm II, at Berlin. Germany had, quite apart from the Italian tradition, its own vigorous traditions of cello-playing as Bach's six suites testify; and latterly, since Haydn had finally fixed the components of the string quartet, the cello was taking its own share of the glory this group was drawing at the pre-eminent chamber ensemble.
But more important, at this time, the German school of composition by the sheer excellence of its output, was selecting the instruments, settling the ensembles, and working out the forms which were to dominate European music for the next century and a half. To stake claims for inclusion in the feast, the cello had, now, to figure in some sort of coincidence which would give it leading functions in a memorable composition by some important composer. And this, when Beethoven went to Berlin in 1796, met Jean-Pierre Duport, and composed his Op.5, is precisely what happened.
It cannot be too strongly emphasised that if Beethoven had omitted to provide the world with his cello sonatas, subsequent cello literature would almost certainly have been far less rich and the cello, consequently, a good deal in arrears of its present state of development. It is conceivable, indeed likely perhaps, that Beethoven's friendship with Viennese cellists like Anton Kraft and, later, Lincke, who first performed the Op.102 sonatas, might have prompted cello works even supposing the Berlin journey of 1796 had not occurred.
As it is, long before he went deaf, Beethoven had been made personal witness of what really fine cello-playing could mean; and whatever one might like to conjecture, this realisation played its own vital part in lifting the cello into position as one of the leading solo voices in Western music. In effect, with the first performance of Op.5, Duport at the cello and an even greater composer joined forces to ensure that the cello sonata should remain a major preoccupation of serious composers for decades to come.
The five sonatas are rather conveniently dispersed through Beethoven's canon of works - two at the beginning, one in the middle, and two towards the end - and thus form fairly sharply contrasting tableaux of Beethoven's art as it appears at various key stages. For those familiar with the string quartets and the piano sonatas, the difference between the techniques and the aims of Op.5 on the one side, and Op.102 on the other will come as no particular surprise. Still, it is worth pointing out that the treatment in Op.5, undeveloped as it may appear in comparison with Beethoven's later art, was certainly remarkable enough for its time. The free Adagio - Allegro - Rondo layout shows that even then Beethoven was by no means overawed by any fixed criterion of form. Similarly, the equality between piano and cello is finely maintained at a time when many other composers were not concerned to maintain it. Beethoven was, of course, faced with the extramusical problem of demonstrating his prowess at the piano before a royal audience which held the cello in high esteem; his solution is to give both Duport and himself a full fair share of the good things going, although for the techniques this required there was, in fact, very few good models.
Of all the cello sonatas Op.69 is probably the most popular. Excellent reasons exist for this as will be heard, but the final pair, simply because the participate in the advanced expertise and refined sublimity of Beethoven's later style, may be expected to provide the more lasting satisfaction. Direct comparison of any of the Op.5 sonatas with Op.102 will reveal the miraculous fact that despite complete deafness, Beethoven has achieved in the latter an integration of the voices the former cannot hope to match and which indeed, has rarely been surpassed since. Derek Jole