The Beethoven Sonatas for Piano and Violoncello An interview with the musicians The Recording So why a new recording? There are so many available - how do you justify another? Each version, each attempt, has something new to say. So does ours! Beethoven is one of the endlessly contemporary figures - in the same category as Plato, Shakespeare and Goethe - and he is constantly relevant to the changing priorities of our world. We hear Beethoven's music as if with fresh ears all the time. The revaluation of great works occurs at a dizzying speed: think of how diverse the recorded interpretations of Beethoven symphonies have been in the past twenty years alone. It is this endless variety of approach that gives access to the treasures we hope to reveal. Were you nervous thinking the live-recorded concert was to become a compact disc? We had not planned it that way. Indeed, a week beforehand we had little intention of recording the concert for anything other than our own curiosity. I think it is fair to say that our nerves might have been more strained with better planning! Then, was that not a big risk? Yes, of course. Music making is risky -but we were seeking to capture spontaneity. How do you capture spontaneity? In truth, you cannot - but we feel that it is worth trying as one form of recording to catch a performance `on the wing`. You put a microphone up and then leave the tape running while you allow the event to unfold. From that point on what you achieve is down to good preparation, the skill of the recording team and a large dash of good luck. The composer has put down on paper many instructions, parameters that must be respected - Beethoven is very particular in this area. The beauty is in finding the freedom within the restraints - of speaking with Beethoven's language as if it is our own. I must say that time and again this is a strong inspiration from the lasting interpretations of the past - including performers such as Schnabel, Furtwangler, Casals and Gould. What about mood? In jazz, folk or rock music I am always impressed by how important to the musicians the mood seems to be. Sometimes it is as though classical musicians take for granted that the mood will come automatically as a by-product of playing the `right` text. I think it is very telling that Beethoven, towards the end of his life, was planning to publish texts to describe more fully the creative motive for each of his works. I feel that the word `mood` is perhaps not the most apposite in Beethoven's case: it is often more correct to say that the music communicates an `idea` rather than an `atmosphere`. How are these ideas presented? They are but one of many strata within the music. Think of an onion; all the layers built one on the other, fitting exactly around the core at the centre. You can slice it through and expose the structure of a cross-section - but you have still seen only one perspective. Beethoven's ideas are paradoxically simple and natural, yet most sophisticated in how they are built up. The players are challenged in many directions. It is a form of musical multi-tasking. Were you thinking about this while being recorded? Good question! The playing puts me into the so-called `alpha` state. The right brain takes over and the critical left brain, which can sometimes spoil the activities of the right, is put into a servant role. Having been in charge of all the analytical work during preparation, in performance the critical facilities are made to go with the flow and help the creative unfolding. The composer is a creative artist. We performers are re-creative. The listener completes a triangle: composer-performer-audience. Were you worried during the concert about making mistakes? It really depends on what you call mistakes! There are the errors of technical presentation that weigh heavily on our vanities as performers (these glitches tend to happen the more you worry about them) - and then there are the more serious errors where we may have failed to communicate the message of the music. To avoid this latter category demands the real bravura on the part of the player - the classical sprezzatura or `noble contempt` that can result in a state of grace upon the concert platform, when magical things can happen. I remember the concert as an occasion. Roughly half way through the first sonata I was aware of enjoying myself and becoming more deeply concerned in realising the import of the music. It was as though the microphone was simply another ear along with the members of the audience, neither one more important than the other. The Programme Why play all five sonatas in an evening? On paper this looks like a colossal programme - but the varying demands on players and audience create a balanced and uplifting evening. Each section of the concert involves a different kind of communication, a different form of energy. The Opus 5 sonatas, for instance, provide nearly an hour of extrovert music, showing the young Beethoven was determined to display his mastery as a composer, his extraordinary keyboard skills and his ability to command attention. With the serenity of the great Sonata in A major, he no longer writes for the court audience, but rather creates a work that transcends the accepted norms of chamber music. Addressed to Mankind, it provides a universal message written during years of tremendous political upheaval within Europe. The sonatas Opus 102, standing at the threshold of his final years, are ever more potent and personal expressions of a now profoundly deaf composer. It is this variety of address that ensures the evening does not cause a form of musical indigestion - certainly the quality of audience concentration that greets this programme is testament to how satisfying and involving it is. In the context of hearing all five sonatas consecutively, each work takes on a new significance. Performer and listener reach a radically enhanced perspective. So what is special about these pieces? Each one of the five is a masterpiece, marked with a strong and unique character. Beethoven creates and masters the genre of piano/cello duo without repeating himself and constantly stretching the level of communication that this combination can achieve. For instance? The F major Sonata Op 5, no.1 begins with a few bars of extremely quiet music where there are more rests than note - a huge surprise for the audience hearing it for the first time, even for audiences today. Then, the development section of the opening allegro moves away from the attractive bravura of the opening. How did we get there - and how will we get back? The G minor Sonata Op 5, no.2 opens with an extraordinary extended adagio, which despite being an introduction is also a huge movement in its own right. The following allegro molto piu tosto presto is a huge torrent of energy. This was music from the future and the past - it has the animal intensity of Shostakovich and it takes Mozart`s G minor vein to its ultimate conclusion. The finale provides welcome relief after such an outburst - with humour, vivacity and (at times) an almost pastoral quality. Op. 69 in A major is a miracle in the way material is shared between the voices. The `cello and piano could easily put each other out of business, but Beethoven ensured that they have a fair chance of exchanging material equally. The famous opening theme is easy enough for the cello to play smoothly but not for the piano. The cool cleanliness that the piano lends to it is harder for the cello to achieve; together, you get the chance for a perfect symbiosis. The C major, Op 102, no. 1 is written as though a much longer work has been distilled down into to its basic essence - a lot of music in very few bars. The urgency with which the ideas are presented makes them almost overlap. The D major Op 102, no 2 is Beethoven as visionary. Unlike the other sonatas this one has a fully-fledged slow movement and this contains the most intense music of the whole evening. From a point of extreme calm he announces a daring fugue which provides an exhilarating conclusion to the series. It is conceived on a scale larger than merely the two instruments it has been scored for. This was only the beginning of his late period. You can hear the search for what was to come in the last four piano sonatas and the late string quartets. What is the most important thing about these pieces? They communicate. They make us feel better. They offer us hope. The message may reach us at different levels according to how closely we get involved by paying them attention or merely hearing them. Beethoven did not underestimate the importance of what he had to say. Remember he dedicated the Eroica Symphony to Napoleon then on learning that Napoleon had declared himself Emperor, furiously removed the title page with the dedication. What composer today would dedicate a composition to a head of state? They illuminate a wide spectrum of human emotions; they entertain, uplift, depress, soften, challenge, unsettle, shock and - even today - surprise us. This is why these pieces continue to fascinate performers and audiences alike - and why people like us will continue to make recordings of them. The Sonatas for Pianoforte and Violoncello Sonata in F, Opus 5, No. 1 Sonata in G minor, Opus 5, No. 2 In 1796 Beethoven, a resident of Vienna and already famous as a piano virtuoso, composer and pupil of Josef Haydn - travelled to Berlin to the court of King Frederick Wilhelm II, an amateur `cellist and generous patron of the arts. Beethoven would have been aware that Mozart had written his last three string quartets with King Frederick in mind, allotting the violoncello a special place in these works. The leading cellist in the Prussian Court Chapel was Jean-Pierre Duport (who was also the King's teacher) but his brother, Jean-Louis Duport - and Beethoven probably gave the first performances. Artaria of Vienna issued the two sonatas in February 1797. Sonata in A, Opus 69 Composed in 1807-1808 with the first edition being published by Breitkopf and Hartel in April 1809. The engravers copy has a dedication which reads `Grosse Sonata fur Clavier und Violonzell. Meinem Freunde k.k. Hofkonzipisten Baron von Gleichenstein gewidmet von Ludwig von Beethoven`. Gleichenstein was an amateur `cellist and the Baron had numbered among Beethoven's earliest friends in Vienna. In May 1811, Gleichenstein married Anna Malfatti, the younger sister of Beethoven`s great friend Therese. When the work was prepared for publication in 1809, Napoleon's armies were preparing to occupy Vienna - on the hand-written dedication copy, Beethoven wrote `Inter Lacrimas et Luctum` (between tears and sorrow). Sonata in C, Opus 102, No.1 Sonata in D, Opus 102, No. 2 Dating from 1815 and composed for the `cellist Joseph Linke, these sonatas were dedicated to Countess Marie Erdody, of whom Beethoven had been a houseguest and intimate friend - there is an unconfirmed anecdote that the adagio of the D major sonata relates to the bereavement of one of the Countess's children. The autograph of the Sonata in C reads `Freje Sonate fur Klavier und Violonschell (sic)` and the first edition of both sonatas, published by Simrock in 1817, was notable for including the cello part above the piano score to ease ensemble.