Cello Sonatas Nos. 1 and 2 (Beethoven)

While there, Beethoven met the King of Prussia Friedrich Wilhelm II, an ardent music-lover and keen cellist.

Although the sonatas are dedicated to Friedrich Wilhelm II, Ferdinand Ries tells us that Beethoven "played several times at the court, where he also played the two cello sonatas, opus 5, composed for Duport (the King's first cellist) and himself".

The first movement, marked Adagio sostenuto ed espressivo, begins with a G minor chord and the piano descending in a dotted scalar pattern.

[2] The closing material of the exposition pulls towards C minor due to the presence of B natural before ending in B♭ major.

In measure 264, a new theme is introduced in the development, foreshadowing the compositional structure of the first movement Eroica.

[4] The music begins in the piano, and the cello enters on a playful counter-melody in measure twelve,[2][8] and the two instruments pass arpeggiated and scalar figures back and forth.

[2] The coda introduces a rhythmically modified version of the original theme and eventually modulates to E♭ major.

[2] The cello plays a series of sixteenth notes octaves as the piano has 32nd scalar runs to end the movement.

[8] The double bassist Domenico Dragonetti performed the Second Cello Sonata accompanied by Beethoven himself.

From that day on, "Beethoven ceased to regard the double-bass as an instrument to be coddled with simplifications of the 'cello part".