The cello was an important instrument for George Enescu. By all accounts he was a talented amateur cellist. It is known that he played Lalo’s concerto with an accompanist and on another occasion, before a private audience, he took up the instrument during an evening that saw him play in turn all four parts of a string quartet. There should be little surprise then that Enescu wrote a significant amount for the cello, including a pair of sonatas, opus 26 (1898 and 1935) and a Nocturne and Saltarello with piano accompaniment (c.1897), an Andante religioso for two cellos and organ, and the Symphonie concertante for cello and orchestra (1901). It seems likely that the unpublished sonata movement played tonight was written around 1897-8 and was originally intended as the opening movement of the opus 26/1 sonata.

Romania is the only Latin country to have assimilated the influence of Byzantine music, with its emphasis on stylised chant melodies and psalmic modal harmonies, into the language of many native composers. Paul Constantinescu (1909-1963) is the most significant twentieth century composer to make a feature of this in his oeuvre. Easter and Christmas oratorios provide large scale examples of his style, but the Free Variations on a Byzantine Theme (1939, later orchestrated) provides clarity for listeners in its succinct and intimate nature. An antiphon – a short biblical text set in a simple syllabic manner – is entrusted to the cello; the theme then undergoes a series of dialogue-like variations with the piano which emphasise the monody of the soloist against a backdrop of Byzantine inflected harmonies. Gradually the music acquires a solemn character before culminating in a brilliantly scored maestoso passage.

Debussy (1862-1918) and Enescu had a mutual awareness of each other’s compositions, but despite having several works in his performing repertoire Enescu was far from a complete Debussy enthusiast. Interviewed in 1912 he commented, “Debussy I find growing cold at present. He seems to be becoming merely pedantic…” This view was largely reflective of opinion at the time, though today many of Debussy’s later compositions are regarded as masterpieces. The cello sonata in D minor (1915) was the first of six projected sonatas, but only three were completed. It evokes the 18th century through being based partly on Baroque models, but it reflects a romanticised view of the time similar to that captured in the poems of Verlaine or the paintings of Watteau. Overall the work carries the concision found in Rameau or Couperin though the mood is sad yet ironic. It is said that the work was originally to be titled Pierrot fâché avec la lune (“Pierrot angry with the moon” – the same clown figure would later inspire Schoenberg to write Pierrot Lunaire). The sonata’s second movement is particularly striking as the cello suggests a guitar or lute being plucked by Pierrot as he serenades the moon. The outer movements which frame it are a lightly pastoral prelude and an animated finale.

Beethoven’s sonata in D major, opus 102/2 (1815) is one of the strongest and most problematic of his duo compositions. Long regarded as being impossible to perform successfully due to Beethoven’s apparent disregard for the practical limitations of the instruments, the taxing fugue-based final movement was cited by his contemporaries as evidence that he could not follow the strictures of academic convention. Yet the work undeniably exudes a near-spiritual quality in the triumphant nature of its writing. The opening movement’s principal theme is marked by thrusting leaps for the cello and strongly chiselled piano writing. The Adagio is initially sad but moves towards a middle section of great promise in the major key, before sinking again to the minor, drawing similarities in texture to the late string quartets and piano sonatas. The fugue almost makes a point of not being sensuously charming with its brusque use of staccato and concentrated energy that anticipates Beethoven’s late period style.

Brahms’ (1833-1897) second cello sonata, opus 99 (1886) is certainly the work of a mature man still composing with a youthfully passionate sweep to his music. The first movement displays boldness in the wild pitting of the two instruments against each other. The Allegro passionato is a powerful scherzo which caused a friend of Brahms to admit she could detect him ‘snorting continually’ throughout it; not exactly a flattering image. Enescu’s views on the work are not known, but we do have Hugo Wolf’s review of the premiere, at which Brahms played the piano:

“What is music today, harmony, melody, rhythm or form if this tohuwabohu [total chaos] is seriously accepted as music? If however Herr Dr Brahms is set on mystifying his worshippers with this newest work, if he is out to have some fun with their brainless veneration, then that is something else again, and we admire in him the greatest charlatan of this century and of all centuries to come.”

Try reconciling that view with the fuddy-duddy image often painted of Brahms as a composer out of touch with contemporary taste! Cellists too have found cause to complain about the difficulty of making themselves heard during the opening movement. The story goes that a lady cellist of inferior technique offered her objections whilst playing it through in Brahms’ company. “You were lucky!” was the composer’s pointed reply.

Based on my previous experience of hearing tonight’s performers in concert the need to make caustic remarks should be wholly unwarranted.

Evan Dickerson