Florence Hooton (violoncello)
Kendall Taylor (pianoforte)
Beethoven's Cello Sonatas, Op. 102, No. 1 in C and No. 2 in D, were composed in the summer of 1815 at Baden. At that time Linke, cellist of the Razumovsky Quartet, was staying with the Countess Erdody at Jedlersee and Beethoven frequently visited the house. The first movement of the D major Sonata is full of determined energy, the slow movement is a tender song of melancholy," and the third is in the form of a vigorous and dramatic fugue.
During the last years of his life, the war years 1915-1918, Debussy projected a series of six ' Sonates pour divers instruments ' signed, as a patriotic gesture, ' Claude Debussy , musicien français '. The composer's death cut short the series when only three of the sonatas had been written.
Of these three, the Sonata for cello and piano was the earliest. Debussy at one time thought of calling it ' Pierrot angry with the . moon'; at the back of his mind, at any rate, was the idea of recaHing the stock characters of the old Italian commedia dell'arte. Vallas speaks of the ' ironical sarcastic, almost facetious character' of the Sonata and draws attention to ' the at times pathetic banter ' of the ' Serenade '.