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Twenty-nine years of age, a brilliant career as a pianist, an
already substantial catalogue of chamber music, though
for rather larger ensembles – piano trios, quartets and
quintets, a string sextet. Then, at last, the young man dared
a confrontation with the composer who, alongside Robert
Schumann, was his model: Ludwig van Beethoven. The
result was a sonata for cello and piano in a pastoral vein,
and in the shadowy key of E minor, even though it was
begun during the summer of 1862.
The first two movements were written in a single burst of
inspiration; an adagio was added, but Brahms deleted it
and replaced it by a finale, so that the work was restricted
to three movements, without a slow one; but the breadth of
the first theme, its tone, its atmosphere, the sombre, dreamy
colouring of thisAllegro (verymuch) non troppo,hadopened
the sonata in a certain reflective slowness, displacing its
centre of gravity.