Cello Sonata No. 1 in F Major

Cellists are very lucky to have the Beethoven cello sonatas. In the composer’s lifetime, the cello was a comparative rarity as a concert soloist; in fact, nothing like these sonatas, in which the cello does much more than simply shadow the piano, has survived from Beethoven’s day. He wrote the sonatas for King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia, a keen and, judging from the music, highly competent cello player, though it was probably the king’s court cellist who gave the public premiere. Not only is this Sonata (1796) generous in its attitude to the cello, but it is also substantial, its two movements taking up around 25 minutes. Or is it in two movements? The first begins with a substantial “Adagio” that feels too weighty to be simply an introduction. Beethoven’s questing approach to traditional forms, so much a feature of his later style, is strongly in evidence here.