Cello Sonata No. 1 (Brahms)
The Cello Sonata No. 1 in E minor, Op. 38, entitled "Sonate für Klavier und Violoncello", was written by Johannes Brahms in 1862–65. Background Brahms composed the first two movements during the summer of 1862, as well as an Adagio which was later deleted. The final movement was composed in 1865. The sonata is entitled "Sonate für Klavier und Violoncello" (for piano and cello) and the piano "should be a partner - often a leading, often a watchful and considerate partner - but it should under no circumstances assume a purely accompanying role". It is dedicated to Josef Gänsbacher, a singing professor and amateur cellist. In the course of a private performance for an audience of friends, Brahms played so loudly that the worthy Gänsbacher complained that he could not hear his cello at all - "Lucky for you, too", growled Brahms, and let the piano rage on. It is "a homage to J. S. Bach" and the principal theme of the first movement and of the fugue are based on Contrapunctus 4 and 13 of The Art of Fugue. Brahms performed the sonata in Mannheim in July 1865 and then offered it to Breitkopf & Härtel, who turned it down. He had however also sent the sonata to Simrock describing it, in one of the most mendacious statements made by a major composer about his own work, as "a violoncello sonata which, as far as both instruments are concerned, is certainly not difficult to play", and they published it in 1866. The work was championed in Europe and London by Robert Hausmann. In gratitude, Brahms dedicated his Second Sonata to Hausmann. Musical description There are three movements: First movement This movement is in a long-lined sonata form, opening with solo cello over chords in the keyboard, a melody that gains and loses in intensity and dynamics, and then passes to the keyboard, where the same general curve is followed without the same notes; the breadth and lyrical quality of this passage are characteristic of much of the movement. We pass from E minor through C major to a substantial second group of themes in first B minor, then B major. This exposition repeats, followed by a development mostly of the second half of the opening theme's first phrase, together with a version of the insistent descending fifth (F–B, F–B, F–B) that had accompanied the last part of the exposition, building to a peak of energy, in which the cello makes two-octave leaps bridged by acciaccaturas against fortissimo variants of the opening theme, after which another theme (the B minor theme, the first theme of the second group) is heard and varied at some length, and the music, after another surge, dies away into the quiet return of the opening theme. (In performances, like the recording made by Jacqueline du Pré and Daniel Barenboim, in which the opening songful quality is taken to mean that Brahms meant the movement for an Andante or even slower tempo.) The recapitulation is fairly