Prior to the turn of the 20th century, Camille Saint-Saëns enriched the cello repertoire with two important compositions: his Cello Concerto No. 1 in A minor, Op. 33 and his Cello Sonata No. 1 in C minor, Op. 32, which he dedicated to cellist Jules Lasserre. The writer Emile Baumann hailed this first Cello Sonata as “a unique work”, a masterpiece. It was composed in the autumn of 1872, and its first public performance – with J. Reuschel on cello and the composer at the piano – was given on 26 March 1873 at the Salle Érard in Paris. The work is divided into three movements: the first and third have a tragic character, while the second offers an oasis of quiet serenity. The work opens with a dramatic Allegro in sonata form. The second movement stems from an organ improvisation performed by Saint-Saëns at Saint-Augustin. The final movement takes up the tumultuous and agitated character of the first and ends in an unrelenting race.
Some 30 years separate the Cello Sonata No. 2 in F major, Op. 123 from its predecessor. The fruit of laborious work, it was completed in early 1905. Saint-Saëns, adopting a typically self-deprecating tone – or perhaps merely to manage expectations – wrote to his publisher Jacques Durand on 16 March 1905, "naturally the Second Sonata will not measure up to the First: when La Fontaine published his second collection of fables, everyone declared it inferior to the previous one". The Sonata No. 2 is structured in four movements, the first in sonata form with contrasting heroic and lyrical characters throughout. The second movement is a Scherzo with eight variations, each with its own identity while maintaining a link to the theme, one of them in the form of a fugue. The third movement is, in Saint-Saëns’ words, "a romance that will delight cellists", and he wrote of its concluding section, "the Adagio will bring tears to sensitive souls". The sonata ends with a playful, light Rondo in which both piano and cello engage in technical virtuosity and imitative games. © Brilliant Classics