Beethoven: Complete Cello & Piano Works Vol.1 – Matilda Colliard & Stefano Ligoratti

If the “hero” is one of the iconic images in Beethoven’s artistic world (from the Eroica Symphony to the myth of Prometheus), the cello seems the perfect instrument for embodying this ideal: it possesses a gorgeous cantabile tone, which has been likened innumerable times to the human voice; it can produce a powerful and vigorous sound, symbolizing strength and energy, but it can also whisper with delicacy or sing nobly; finally, it can show its capabilities in extreme virtuoso techniques, which represent the musical equivalent of an hero’s virtue.

Yet, as happens to many “heroes”, the cello had not come to realize its full possibilities before Beethoven’s time. Of course, many masterpieces had already been composed for this instrument (from Bach’s Suites to Haydn’s Concertos, to cite only the most obvious examples), and its technique had already been explored both by composers and performers; however, it still had to “conquer” its place in the chamber music repertoire, and even within Beethoven’s own production this proved to be a gradual process.

When Beethoven first entered the arena of cello music, he was a youth in his twenties, an acclaimed virtuoso on the piano and a blossoming composer who had already attracted the attention of many. At that time, however, the cello and piano duo had still to find its distinctive voice. The cello either was a somewhat expendable accompanying tone to keyboard works, or, on the contrary, was the protagonist of pieces with continuo accompaniment. The two instruments had not yet learnt how to speak together on a plane of equality. Their combination, however, was very promising and stimulating: the range of both instruments exceeded those of most others and largely overlapped; they complemented each other perfectly, as the cello’s supremacy in the field of singing tones was counterbalanced by the greater polyphonic possibilities of the piano. Moreover, their dynamic ranges were closer to each other than happens to their modern versions, and thus it was comparatively easier to achieve a satisfactory dynamic balance.

Though all five of Beethoven’s Cello Sonatas have earned pride of place among the masterpieces of cello literature, they are also very different from each other, and mirror very closely the three famous “stages” of Beethoven’s compositional activity which (perhaps simplistically) divide his lifetime into a youthful period, a mature age, and a late phase. And these three stages also reflect the evolving relationship between the two instruments, and the gradual “conquest” of a distinctive role for the cello and of a peculiar voice for the duo.