Select a recording of a work, or movement of a work from the Romantic period that includes your instrument (or voice). In an essay of 2000 words you should analyse and evaluate stylistic features of the performance based upon a variety of evidence: this may include knowledge of the instruments for which the work was written, differing musical texts (that is scores) of the work (autograph scores and first editions, where available, or through the critical commentary of a modern Urtext edition), other historical and/or modern recordings, historical treatises and documents, score analysis, and writings on performance issues (historical and modern). .
Response.
Beethoven's "Sonata for Cello and Piano op. 69," was composed in 1806-1807. Dedicated to Baron Gleichenstein, a cellist of limited merits, the work provides useful insights into Beethoven's expectations of cellists in his own day. This essay will discuss a number performance issues that arise from bars 1-24 of the work's first movement, with references to Jacqueline du Pré's and Daniel Barenboim's 1970 recording. The sonata was first published in 1809 by Breitkopf und Härtel of Leipzig; the most reliable modern edition of the work was published in 1971 in the Beethoven Gesamtausgabe. Both publications will be considered here, in addition to Beethoven's manuscript, which is held in the Beethoven Haus, Bonn. .
There is a question over the appropriate tempo for the movement, due to a discrepancy in the sources for the movement's time signature. Beethoven's prescribed tempo marking is Allegro, ma non tanto with the autograph score giving a time signature of 4/4 (C) on all three staves. However, the Gesamtausgabe (following the first edition) gives 2/2 (cut-C). It is possible therefore that Beethoven amended the time signature after sending the autograph to the publisher. Beethoven's student Carl Czerny wrote that 'Although alla breve the time must still be moderate', and gave a metronome mark of minim=72 for guidance.
