Beethoven’s five sonatas for violoncello and piano form a cosmos all of their own. They exemplarily represent this Titan’s three compositional periods, and the interrelations between them shape a surprisingly self-contained work group surveying the composer’s entire life. Reason enough for Manuel Fischer-Dieskau and Connie Shih to present an absolutely new recording of this cycle. The two early Sonatas op. 5 show us the impetuous “wild youth” who delights in playing with fresh Viennese influences. There are reminiscences of courtly Baroque music, Viennese classicism is in full flower, and the boy from small-town Bonn shows the Viennese just how things can and should be done. The Sonata op. 69, a principal work among the compositions of his “middle period,” is considerably more concentrated. Here the piano and cello vie with great seriousness to see which one will leave its mark on the character of the piece. And then we have the two Sonatas op. 102. Beethoven’s enigmatic, often unwieldly late oeuvre begins with this pair of sister works, and it is surely no coincidence that it is not until the last Sonata op. 102,2 that a slow movement takes shape in which the cello is allowed to develop its lyrical potential. Manuel Fischer-Dieskau and Connie Shih dedicate themselves to this opus magnum with passion and play a brilliant game of musical catch.
