Ruth Leon recommends… Beethoven Cello Sonatas lecture/recital – Stephen Isserlis
Ruth Leon recommendsBeethoven Cello Sonatas lecture/recital – Stephen Isserlis
I treated myself this week to a lovely wallow inBeethoven Cello Sonatas and learned a lot at the same time. You can too. It turns out Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) only composed five cello sonatas and these two are from the beginning (1796) and the end (1815) of his working life. I learned this from the cellist,
Steven Isserlis, who loves to talk about music.
In this lecture/recital from Wigmore Hall he took the opportunity not only to perform, with pianist Mishka Rushdie Momen, the Cello Sonata in F Op. 5 and the Cello Sonata in C Op. 102, but to talk about them.
It is a revelation, musically and pedagogically. Even if you think you know these works I’d bet you’ve never examined them forensically as Isserlis does here, fluently and knowledgably, as only a musician who has been playing them for his entire career and knows every note as an old friend, could.
Suddenly, with his guidance, you can see how Beethoven changed and developed during the 16 years between the writing of these sonatas, and learn how to listen to the specifics as well as the whole with a depth you may never have done before.
Steven, not Stephen.
One of the most interesting, articulate and enlightening men of Classical music.
I agree, and delivered with his usual charm and wit. Lovely!
With all due respect, when an article begins with “it turns out Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) only composed five cello sonatas … I learned this from the cellist …” that means, in other words, “until this lecture I was totally ignorant about Beethoven’s cello sonatas.” How can any subsequent praise for the (I agree, wonderful) cellist and his insights and mastery of the music (which I am prepared to concede would be of the first water) from such a source have any meaning, or be in any way reliable or useful? That phrase “it turns out” says it all.
I am not usually this grouchy about the music-writing of others, but this stuck me as just awful.
My favorite moment in the Beethoven Cello Sonatas is the piano’s note-for-note quotation of Sousa’s “Stars and Stripes Forever” in the first movement of #4: The 4:16 mark here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9kHHq_E-Hc