Cello Sonata No. 1 (Brahms)

The Cello Sonata No. 1 in E minor, Op. 38 written by Johannes Brahms in 1862–5 has three movements:
* Allegro non troppo, in E minor, in common (4/4) time.
* Allegretto quasi Menuetto, in A minor, in 3/4, with a trio in F-sharp minor.
* Allegro, in E minor, in common time.

Musical description

First movement

This movement is in a long-lined sonata form, opening with solo cello over chords in the keyboard, a melody that gains and loses in intensity and dynamics, and then passes to the keyboard, 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, and the coda expands on the B major theme.

econd movement

Brahms' antiquarian interests, his studies of music from the Renaissance to the Classical periods, show in his work — he edited and helped publish a two-chorus motet by Mozart "Venite Populi", he had a collection of sonatas by Scarlatti — and in his composition, his motets op. 74, his interest in the fugue and the passacaglia (outside of organ music such as Josef Rheinberger's 8th sonata, fairly rare in the Romantic era), or in such pieces as the second string quartet's minuet, and this one. It is generally quiet and often staccato. Characteristic of this section is the use of ornamentation that has a French baroque sound. The trio, of sinuous melody, features a characteristic figuration in the piano right hand whose top notes are constantly in unison with either the piano left hand or with the cello.

Third movement

This movement is often referred to as a fugue. It is more of a sonata movement with very substantial fugal sections, however. The opening theme, which bears a resemblance to one of the 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.

External links

*IMSLP2|id=Cello_Sonata_No.1%2C_Op.38_(Brahms%2C_Johannes)|cname=Cello Sonata No. 1 (Brahms)
* [http://gardnermuseum.libsyn.com/media/gardnermuseum/brahms_op38.mp3 Performance by Wendy Warner, cello and Eileen Buck, piano] from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
* [http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/03/hhsu1/music_articles/brahms_op38.html Brahms' First Cello Sonata, Bach and Romberg]