Cello Sonatas No. 1 and No. 2 (Opus 5) were written by Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...

 in 1796, while he was in Berlin. While there, Beethoven met the King of Prussia

Prussia

Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...

 Friedrich Wilhelm II

Frederick William II of Prussia

Frederick William II was the King of Prussia, reigning from 1786 until his death. He was in personal union the Prince-Elector of Brandenburg and the sovereign prince of the Principality of Neuchâtel.-Early life:...

, an ardent music-lover and keen cellist. Although the sonatas are dedicated to Friedrich Wilhelm II, Ferdinand Ries

Ferdinand Ries

Ferdinand Ries was a German composer.- Life :Born into a musical family of Bonn, Ries was a friend and pupil of Beethoven who published in 1838 a collection of reminiscences of his teacher, co-written with Franz Wegeler...

 tells us that Beethoven "played several times at the court, where he also played the two cello sonata

Cello sonata

A cello sonata is usually a sonata written for cello and piano, though other instrumentations are used, such as solo cello. The most famous Romantic-era cellos sonatas are those written by Johannes Brahms and Ludwig van Beethoven...

s, opus 5, composed for Duport (the King's first cellist) and himself". Although Jean-Pierre Duport

Jean-Pierre Duport

Jean-Pierre Duport was a cellist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Along with his brother, Jean-Louis Duport , he was active in the musical life of France and Germany...

 was one of the King's teachers, it is now thought to have been his brother Jean-Louis Duport

Jean-Louis Duport

Jean-Louis Duport , sometimes known as Duport the Younger to distinguish him from his older brother Jean-Pierre , was a cellist....

 who had the honor of premiering these sonatas.

Both of these sonatas are in two movements, with an extended Adagio introduction preceding the opening Allegro of both of them. The movements are entitled as follows :

Sonata No. 1 in F Major, Op. 5 No. 1

1. Adagio sostenuto - Allegro
2. Rondo
   Rondo
   Rondo, and its French equivalent rondeau, is a word that has been used in music in a number of ways, most often in reference to a musical form, but also to a character-type that is distinct from the form...
   
   . Allegro vivace

Sonata No. 2 in G minor, Op. 5 No. 2

1. Adagio sostenuto e espressivo - Allegro molto più tosto presto (ends in major).
2. Rondo. Allegro (in G major
   G major
   G major is a major scale based on G, with the pitches G, A, B, C, D, E, and F. Its key signature has one sharp, F; in treble-clef key signatures, the sharp-symbol for F is usually placed on the first line from the top, though in some Baroque music it is placed on the first space from the bottom...
   
   )

External links

• Performance of Cello Sonata No. 1 by Efe Baltacigil (cello) and Anna Polonsky (piano) from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
  Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
  The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum or Fenway Court, as the museum was known during Isabella Stewart Gardner's lifetime, is a museum in the Fenway-Kenmore neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, located within walking distance of the Museum of Fine Arts and near the Back Bay Fens...
  
   in MP3
  MP3
  MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
  
  format