Talk:Cello Sonata No. 1 (Brahms)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	Cello Sonata No. 1 (Brahms) is within the scope of WikiProject Classical music, which aims to improve, expand, cleanup, and maintain all articles related to classical music, that aren't covered by other classical music related projects. Please read the guidelines for writing and maintaining articles. To participate, you can edit this article or visit the project page for more details.
	This article is supported by the Compositions task force.

How's this for a work description to replace the one currently in the article??

1 First movement
2 Second movement
3 Third movement
4 External link

[edit] First movement

This movement is in a long-lined sonata form, opening with solo cello over chords in the piano, a melody that gains and loses in intensity and dynamics, and then passes to the piano, 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, the drama in this section can be hard to pull off, requiring a shift of gears if it's to be done at all.)

The recapitulation is fairly regular (proceeds much as did the exposition), and the coda expands on the pensive B major theme.

[edit] Second movement

Brahms' interest in older music (of the musical eras we now describe as Renaissance, Baroque, and Classical) was substantial; he had a collection of sonatas by Scarlatti, helped edit a motet (Venite populi) for double chorus by Mozart for publication, to give two of several examples. Several of his works contain movements in the style of a minuet; his second string quartet is one, and here is another, in 3/4 time, unison opening, the gait feels right also. The main part of this minuet is mostly piano and much of it is played staccato as well. (Instead of exact repeats there is somewhat varied repetition instead.) The trio section, in which the piano right hand almost always plays basically the same notes as either the left hand or as the cello, is a sinuous melody.

[edit] Third movement

This movement is often referred to as a fugue (indeed, is one of the examples in that article). It is more of a sonata movement with very substantial fugal sections, however. The opening theme, which bears a resemblance to one of the Contrapunctuses (Contrapuncti?) from the Kunst der Fuge, does develop fugally until into the G major second subject group, a section which is much more conventionally (if wonderfully) treated.

The development opens with descending octaves — the first half of the fugato theme — under statements of the triplet theme which is its second half, in imitation between piano and cello. This leads to C minor, to an inverted statement of the fugue, to another episode-like section (bar 95, based on a part of the fugal opening first heard in bar 16; if this is not a fugue it is indeed very like) and after a brief section again in fugal imitation to a tense and tension-gaining section in true sonata style (bars 105-114, returning us to E minor, again based on the bar 16 figure) and a return to the main key, the second theme instead of the first, in triplets. After a repeat of the second theme, the opening fugato (what one calls a fugal section that's part of a larger movement rather than itself a fugue) returns, quoted in its entirety but staying in E minor rather than modulating to G, leading to the Più Presto coda.