1. Allegro agitato
2. Andante molto tranquillo
3. Allegro molto e marcato

Grieg’s great fame as a composer rests largely on the Piano Concerto, a handful of piano pieces, the Holberg Suite and movements from his incidental music for Peer Gynt. One work from the same period as the Piano Concerto was to provide an important source for the Cello Sonata: the incidental music for the play Sigurd Jorsalfar from 1872. The Cello Sonata was started in late 1882 and the first draft was finished in April 1883. Grieg dated the manuscript of his slightly revised version of the work 18 August 1883. It is one of a handful of major chamber works, along with three violin sonatas, one complete surviving string quartet and one left incomplete. The first movement of the Cello Sonata is in sonata form (something of a rarity for Grieg) and opens with a passionate and agitated theme which eventually gives way to a calmer second theme introduced by gentle chords on the piano. The movement ends with an animated coda based on the opening idea (with added hints of the opening phrase from the Piano Concerto). The expressive slow movement is based largely on the recycled ‘Homage March’ from Grieg’s Sigurd Jorsalfar incidental music (aptly enough, since in the original orchestral version this passage is scored for four cellos). The finale opens with a cadenza for the cello before launching into an extended Norwegian dance which occasionally threatens to become bombastic but which ends impressively. The work was dedicated by Grieg to his brother John, an accomplished cellist, and on 1 October 1883, Grieg sent him the first printed copy. The first two performances were given by two of Europe’s preeminent cellists of the time. The premiere was given by Friedrich Grützmacher in Dresden on 22 October 1883; a few days later (on 27 October) Julius Klengel gave the work in Leipzig. Grieg was the pianist on both occasions.

© Nigel Simeone