1. Allegro assai vivace
2. Allegretto scherzando
3. Adagio
4. Molto allegro e vivace

Completed ca. June 1843.

Premiered on November 18, 1843 in Leipzig by cellist Franz Carl Wittmann and the composer at the piano.

The turn of the nineteenth century emancipated the cello from its traditional supporting role, as Beethoven, followed by his heirs in the Romantic period, increasingly contributed sonatas, concerti, and other solo works to the cello literature. Felix Mendelssohn’s Cello Sonata in D Major, op. 58 may rightly be counted among the most significant of these, and equally as a quintessential statement of the aesthetic that defined its era.

Mendelssohn penned the Opus 58 Sonata in 1843, a year of considerable personal upheaval. Having at last concluded an unhappy residency in Berlin, Mendelssohn and his family returned to Leipzig, where they had previously spent the years 1835–1840, during which time, Mendelssohn scholar R. Larry Todd notes, the composer, still in his 20s, “stood at the forefront of German music.” Hence in 1840, as part of a sweeping attempt to install Berlin among Europe’s major cultural capitals, the recently ascendant Friedrich Wilhelm IV had lured Mendelssohn from Leipzig. Though compensated handsomely in both payment and prestige, however, Mendelssohn would not find personal satisfaction in Berlin over the coming three years. His professional responsibilities remained frustratingly undefined—besides which, he regarded that city as “one of the most sour apples into which a man can bite”—and, in 1843, Mendelssohn resumed his conducting duties at the Leipzig Gewandhaus. Moreover, with his beloved mother’s death on December 12, 1842, Felix shared the realization with his younger brother, Paul, that “we are children no longer.” This sentiment may have partly impelled the 34-year-old composer to act upon his longtime ambition of founding a conservatory (now the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy University of Music and Theatre), whose charter faculty would include himself, Robert and Clara Schumann, and others of Germany’s musical elite.

Despite the turbulence surrounding this time, 1843 nevertheless represented a solidly productive year. In addition to the Opus 58 Sonata, Mendelssohn completed his incidental music to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the Capriccio for String Quartet (later published as Op. 81, No. 3), five Lieder ohne worte for piano, and numerous choral pieces, among other works.

Befitting Mendelssohn’s mature compositional language, the D Major Sonata is firmly rooted in the tenets of Classicism inherited from Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven, but meanwhile demonstrates the pathos of the Romantic period. Each of the sonata’s four movements portrays a vital dimension of Mendelssohn’s musical identity. The opening Allegro assai vivace is all soaring lyricism and propulsive rhythmic energy, even at its tender second theme. The movement’s ecstatic tone dispels the misguided aphorism that music’s emotional content must correlate to biography—there is nothing in this movement, after all, to betray Mendelssohn’s grief over his mother’s passing—but, rather, its great emotive breadth reflects the zeitgeist of the Romantic period at large. The second movement offers further Romantic cantabile, but couched in a signature Mendelssohnian scherzo. The cello complements the piano’s sly staccato figures with piquant pizzicati before indulging in breathless melody. The homophonic, hymn-like piano introduction to the slow movement furtively recalls Bach—one of Mendelssohn’s formative influences—but with an unmistakably nineteenth-century touch: Mendelssohn’s instruction sempre arpeggiando col pedale (“arpeggiated and with pedal”) imbues each chord with a distinctly more lush and immersive sound than would characterize a Baroque organ chorale. The cello answers with a dramatic recitative, marked appassionato ed animato. The spirited dialogue between cello and piano continues in the finale, now returning to the effervescence of the opening movement. An increased restlessness in the piano accompaniment matches the virtuosic cello writing measure for measure until the stirring final cadence.

Though the Opus 58 Sonata bears a dedication to the Russian cellist and arts patron Count Mateusz Wielhorski, Felix truly intended the work for the aforementioned Paul, the cellist of the Mendelssohn family. It is the second of two cello sonatas Mendelssohn composed: the first, the Sonata in B-flat Major, op. 45 (1838), as well as the earlier Variations concertantes for Cello and Piano (1829), were likewise composed for Paul.

— © Patrick Castillo

Robert Schumann was a promising pianist studying with Freiderich Wieck in the 1830s when a hand injury led him to shift his focus to composition. Schumann was in love with Wieck’s daughter Clara, who, nine years his junior, was a piano prodigy. At 18, Clara was not of age to give consent to marriage without her father’s blessing, who adamantly believed that marriage to a composer would ruin her career prospects (it did not). After years of arduous and expensive legal battles, Robert and Clara married in 1840.  

Felix Mendelssohn began directing Leipzig’s Gewandhaus Orchestra in 1835 and held the post until he died in 1847. During this time, he elevated the orchestra to a world-class reputation and was intimately involved in its funding efforts, as with an 1841 fundraiser recital that featured Clara Schumann. Mendelssohn was eager to give the newlyweds a performance opportunity to support their ongoing legal expenses, and he gifted them the Allegro Brilliant for their first public performance together.

The opening Andante features the two pianists trading a softly yearning melody carried along by a flowing stream of notes. The theme grows toward a billowing climax with all four hands working in tandem, only to settle into quietude. Without a break, the Allegro Brilliant is off to the races.

A dizzying scherzo replete with demanding virtuosity, the Allegro’s first melody flies with dancing zeal with busy elaborations. A second theme recalls the opening for its tenderness, as the pianists take turns on the melody completing the other’s phrases. As the movement develops, Mendelssohn challenges the players with rich overlapping textures, lightning-speed call-and-response, and a hectic finale. The work yields both conversational intimacy and collaborative energy, making it a touching gift for the newly-wed Schumanns.  

—Chaz Stuart

1. Allegro agitato
2. Andante molto tranquillo
3. Allegro

Composed between 1882 and 1883.

Premiered on October 22, 1883 in Dresden by cellist Friedrich Ludwig Grützmacher and the composer at the piano.

"Artists like Bach and Beethoven erected churches and temples on ethereal heights. My aim in my music is exactly what Ibsen says about his plays: 'I want to build homes for the people in which they can be happy and contented'". Like Bartók, Grieg discovered his musical mission in the culture of his native land. Formally schooled in Leipzig, he rejected rule-bound composing and instead adopted the romantic spirit of Schumann. He traveled widely and met many great musicians, including Brahms, Wagner, Tchaikovsky, and Liszt, who was an admirer. Perhaps his broad knowledge of music contributed to insecurities about his own compositional technique; it took him over six months to complete the cello sonata. "Every other day I decide not to compose because I am less and less satisfied with myself." (1882).

I. Allegro agitato

How quickly the first of many storms in this movement comes up! This is in no way the relatively calm La Mer of Debussy, but the crashing waves and howling winds of the north. The cello begins with the main theme quietly over the piano's nervous accompaniment, but the piano, like the storm itself, soon rises to fever pitch and all but drowns the cello in crashing chords and octaves. All this is over in a few moments, closed by a brief and even more violent coda, and we are left in stunned silence. Then, magically, three peaceful C major chords announce the arrival of fair weather (or the second subject, if you must). As the cello sings the theme over rich harmonies so typical of Grieg, one can feel the warmth of the sun or a glowing fire. An expressive dialogue between the instruments carries the theme through various keys before C major reemerges, this time excitedly, and cascades of arpeggios sweep us into the development. One senses trouble on hearing the second subject in a minor key, and sure enough, “big storm number two” soon hits in f-sharp minor. Frantically, the cello and piano exchange lightning bolts in ever-quicker succession. This storm never totally dies, and reappears in full force again as the recapitulation. In the coda, as expected, we are again drenched and blown about, hopefully lashed to the mast.

II. Andante molto tranquillo

The gorgeous slow movement opens with one of the most poignantly beautiful chord progressions imaginable, as if the piano itself is dropping down from heaven. By the cello entrance we are seated on rich earth. I find particularly inspiring Grieg's seemingly endless resource of harmonies that color the single, oft-repeated notes of the melody. Contentedness gives way to brooding, however, and tempers rise, giving way to succeedingly violent outbursts, culminating in a passage where the pianist is called upon to practically bang the piano to pieces. As if knocked unconscious, we hear, in pianississimo, a trace of the first theme, and gradually warmth begins to flow in our veins as the first theme returns, this time with an even more beautiful harmonization. After a climax worthy of Rachmaninov, a delicate and sentimental coda concludes the movement.

III. Allegro 

Grieg's finale is in folk style, with a jumping, dancing theme. However, there is also a bit of mystery here in the ghostly little solo cello line that bridges from the slow movement. It's like something that you know will come back to haunt you later, and it does! After an exuberant virtuosic episode, two big cantabile phrases in the piano and cello bring in the second theme, which is actually made from the first subject slowed to half tempo. But how different it sounds! Would you have recognized it? Of course we're still in Norway, so we must have some more storms and sailing before we get to a very curious passage that, although obviously out of Grieg's imagination, seems like an explosion brewing in a nuclear reactor. When the blast finally comes it goes on and on, and, as if saved by aliens, we are transported out by the reappearance of the opening other-worldly melody, now harmonized. A full recapitulation follows, with a brilliant coda in which the mystery theme makes its final, triumphant, and ultimately dominating appearance.

— © David Finckel