Beethoven cut his musical teeth in his native Bonn, a relatively small provincial capital whose cultural life offered limited scope for a prodigiously gifted and ambitious young musician. In late 1792, he burst onto the scene in cosmopolitan Vienna and spent the rest of the decade burnishing his reputation as a pianistic powerhouse; upon hearing him play, his fellow virtuoso Wenzel Tomaschek was so overwhelmed that he refused to touch his own instrument for several days. Boundlessly energetic and self-confident to a fault, the young tyro made no secret of his impatience to emerge from the deep shadow cast by his esteemed mentor, Joseph Haydn. By 1800, his 30th year, Beethoven had an impressive clutch of masterpieces to his credit, including his first symphony, three piano concertos, a septet for winds and strings, and six string quartets. Modesty was not Beethoven’s strong suit. Upon completing his Op. 18 quartets, he told a friend that he had “only just learned to write quartets properly,” implicitly setting them on a plane with the works of Haydn’s maturity.
Throughout his life, Beethoven amused himself—and supplemented his income—by composing variations on popular tunes of the day, from patriotic tub-thumpers like “Rule Britannia” to operatic arias by Mozart and Salieri and an unpretentious waltz by Anton Diabelli. In 1796, the 26-year-old composer embarked on a concert tour to Prague and Berlin, where he presented his first two cello sonatas as a calling card to the cello-playing Prussian monarch, Friedrich Wilhelm II. It was in the German capital that he met the eminent French cellist Jean-Louis Duport, for whom he composed the two Op. 5 sonatas, as well as a charming set of variations on Handel’s “See the conqu’ring hero comes” from Judas Maccabaeus. The latter’s commercial success inspired Beethoven (or his publisher) to follow up with two more works based on popular operatic themes, this time from Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte.
Beethoven freely acknowledged the debt he owed to his predecessor—his first teacher in Bonn famously predicted that he would grow up to be “a second Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart”—and the two composers may have even crossed paths when Beethoven visited Vienna in 1787. “Bei Männern, welche Liebe fühlen” (“Men who feel the call of love”)—the paean to marriage that Pamina and Papageno sing in Act I of Die Zauberflöte—is disarmingly melodious and straightforward in its phrase structure, both qualities that lend themselves to variation composition. In first stating the genial E-flat–major theme, Beethoven subtly mimics the singers’ voices by contrasting the cello’s baritone and treble registers. The ensuing seven variations range in mood from sassily spirited to warmly sentimental. A poignant excursion to the minor mode in the central variation is echoed in the dramatic introduction to the Coda, where Beethoven literally turns Mozart’s unpretentious tune on its head.
Flaunting convention, Beethoven lays out the first of the Op. 102 cello sonatas in two very fast movements of contrasting characters, each preceded by a leisurely and somewhat meandering preamble. The tender 6/8 theme of the opening Andante is punctuated with tiny pauses and fluttering trills that create an aura of expectancy, a lull before the storm that erupts without warning in the first Allegro vivace in A minor. Listen for the rising four-note figure (long-short-short-long) that Beethoven inserts in the cello part just before the first-section repeat: It will return as an integral part of the main theme of the second Allegro vivace, the two instruments playfully batting it back and forth in a game of cat and mouse. In similar fashion, the brief passage that links the second slow-fast pair reprises the opening Andante.
Beethoven’s last violin sonata, Op. 96, is dedicated to Archduke Rudolf, son of Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II and younger brother of his successor, Franz I. As Beethoven’s diligent composition pupil, lifelong friend, and most magnanimous patron, Archduke Rudolf was more than deserving of the tribute the composer paid him in the dedications of such masterworks as the “Archduke” Piano Trio, the Missa solemnis, the “Emperor” Piano Concerto, and the “Hammerklavier” Piano Sonata. Beethoven’s relations with the young Archduke, whom he described to another close friend as “an amiable and talented prince,” were singularly warm and free of tension. Rudolf played the piano at a private performance of the G-Major Sonata on December 29, 1812, with celebrated French violinist Pierre Rode.
Beethoven’s Op. 96 is the antithesis of virtuosic display. The simple question-and-answer phrase heard at the beginning is little more than an ornamented trill, yet it provides ample grist for the entire Allegro moderato: Beethoven uses an emotionally heightened variant of the little four-note figure as a bridge to the harmonically searching development section and ruminates on it, almost obsessively, in the movement’s closing measures. The Adagio espressivo is based on a spacious chorale-like melody in E-flat major; it leads without pause into a crisply syncopated Scherzo in G minor, with a flowing major-key trio section sandwiched in the middle. In the concluding Poco allegretto, Beethoven rings variations on a cheery folk-like tune. After a sublimely expressive adagio section, embellished with delicate chromatic tracery, the playfully vivacious coda provides the only touch of virtuosic brilliance in the sonata.
Beethoven was impatient to take his place in the public eye alongside Haydn, with whom he studied from late 1792 to early 1794. The C-Minor Trio was considerably more adventurous than its two companions in the Op. 1 set—so adventurous, in fact, that Haydn advised his pupil not to publish it for fear of alienating potential patrons and customers. Beethoven interpreted this well-intended tip as motivated by jealousy, a claim that seems far-fetched in light of Haydn’s magnanimous disposition. (In fact, the older composer would later eat his words, telling Beethoven’s student Ferdinand Ries that “he had not imagined that this trio would be so quickly and easily understood nor so favorably received by the public.”) Not only did Beethoven disregard Haydn’s advice, he petulantly refused to include the customary acknowledgment of his teacher on the title page of his debut opus. Instead, he chose to curry favor with the aristocracy by dedicating the three trios to a future patron, Prince Karl Lichnowsky.
Beethoven’s debt to the older master is apparent in the C-Minor Trio’s combination of Sturm und Drang turbulence and a quirky, playful spirit that at times borders on impishness. The opening Allegro con brio sets the tone for the work with its explosive energy and air of brooding menace. If the writing for violin and cello falls well within the competency of accomplished amateurs, the piano part presents technical demands of a higher order, reminding us that Beethoven in his mid-20s had already established himself as one of Europe’s leading keyboard virtuosos. The bravura element is still more pronounced in the spitfire variations of the Andante cantabile and the tense, intricately interlocking gestures of the Menuetto. In the latter, Beethoven seems to go out of his way to subvert the genre’s nominal character: This minuet is more calisthenics than dance. The trio’s pent-up energy is released in the feverish Finale, which germinates from a stabbing three-note motif that is as arresting—and as packed with musical meaning—as the “fate” motif in Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.
—Harry Haskell
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