Cello Sonata No. 2 in F Major

Brahms wrote his Cello Sonata No. 2 in 1886 for the German cellist Robert Hausmann during a summer retreat at Lake Thun in Switzerland. The highly successful first performance was given in Vienna in November of the same year with Hausmann and the composer playing the hugely demanding piano part. Of the three contrasting themes that dominate the powerful “Allegro vivace,” the first, characterised by the cello’s heroic rhythmic leaps and underpinned by surging tremolos in the piano, is particularly striking. Equally remarkable is the unusual texture that opens the heartfelt “Adagio affettuoso”, with a plucked walking bass line in the cello’s most resonant lower register partnering the piano’s richly scored chords. The rhythmically dynamic and impassioned outer sections of the scherzo (“Allegro passionato”) frame a gentler trio, which features one of Brahms’ most songful melodies. In stark contrast, the lively “Allegro molto” finds the composer in a much more relaxed frame of mind, with the darker allusions in the brief middle section failing to spoil the overall mood of celebration.