Frédéric Chopin

Chopin's cello sonata, Op. 65, was his last major work. Apart from the piano, the cello was the only instrument for which Chopin composed substantial amounts of music; in 1832 he had written the Grand Duo Concertant for the cellist Auguste Franchomme. In part because of the presence of the cello, and in greater part because of the formal characteristics of the piece, the composition of the cello sonata occupied Chopin for an unusually long period. He worked on it through 1845 and well into 1846, sketching and drafting as he had not done before, and at one point complaining to his sister, "I write a little and cross out a lot." Extant sketches show that Chopin did indeed discard an incredible amount of material and redrafted most of his ideas before deciding on the final form of the work. The piece was printed in Paris in 1847. Chopin and Franchomme premiered the sonata in Paris to great acclaim, in what was to be the last performance of Chopin's career.

Much of Chopin's anguish stemmed from his difficulties in the shaping the relationship between the two instruments. That he mostly composed the cello part first was perhaps at the heart of the matter, for Chopin was forced to curb his keyboard tendencies and remove himself from his natural idiom. It is no surprise that the piano part often sounds uncharacteristic of Chopin. Furthermore, because he chose to engage himself with the Germanic sonata idea, as he had in his piano sonatas, he had to set aside his predilection for ternary forms with codas and achieve contrast and develop logical structures in new and unfamiliar ways.

Chopin takes great care to distribute the material equally between the cello and piano, and he accomplishes this goal in a variety of ways. For instance, in the first group of themes in the first movement we hear passages of piano solo, piano with cello accompaniment, cello with a substantial piano counter-subject, cello with only light piano accompaniment, and counterpoint in which the two partners are equal. After the second group opens with rounded phrases for each instrument, a three-part invention involving both instruments ensues. The Germanic aspect of the movement becomes clear in Chopin's development of an integrated sonata form from a few related motives. Inversion and other transformations of motives from the first few measures occur even in the exposition. One of the cello's most important motives, a rising and falling half-step, comes not from the main theme but from prefatory material, and what seem like mere connective gestures evolve into parts of themes. It is not surprising that Chopin moves to the relative major (B flat), but what is striking is his path--a string of dominant-seventh harmonies--toward this goal. Throughout, Chopin diminishes the punctuating potential of his cadences by writing continuous melody over them, giving a sense of constant growth.

Chopin creates relationships among the four movements of the sonata through melodic references. The primary cello motive of the first movement, a rising and falling half-step, opens the lush second movement, the folksy scherzo, and the tarantella finale--further evidence that Chopin was consciously experimenting with German compositional methods. The clear divisions between cello and piano in the second movement contrast with the more integrated use of the instruments in the first movement, while the finale sounds, at times, like Mendelssohn. The end result is a unique, un-Chopinesque work.