A cello sonata is a three- or four-movement musical work for solo cello and accompaniment. The piano is usually used as the accompaniment, though a continuo was used in earlier music. A sonata usually starts with an allegro movement, then progresses to a slower movement, and finally concludes with a quick movement, such as a rondo. A minuet could be the third movement of a cello sonata with four movements. The first movement may take the form of a sonata, with an exposition, development, and recapitulation, though this is not always the case.
The cello is a violin-family instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. Apart from the double bass, it is the largest stringed instrument in the modern orchestra. The cello’s lower tone compared to the violin gives it a distinct sound as a solo instrument that is thought to sound more like a human male voice. Because of the difficulty of blending the low tone of the cello with the bass notes of the piano, cello sonatas with piano accompaniment are considered technically difficult to write.
Composers like Antonio Vivaldi were among the first to write cello sonatas. Ludwig van Beethoven and Johannes Brahms later experimented with the cello sonata. Cello sonatas by Edvard Grieg, Samuel Barber, and Benjamin Britten are examples of 20th-century cello sonatas. Because of the beauty of its tone, the cello is favored as a solo instrument, and composers have written works for it despite the difficulties it presents. Despite his musical experience, Frederic Chopin is said to have spent as much time deleting passages as he did adding new sections to his cello sonata.
Cello sonatas have varied in style and tone from one period to the next, and according to the composer’s approach to each work. Vivaldi composed his cello sonatas with a large continuo in the Baroque style. In contrast to much of his writing for other instruments, he used them to express a thoughtful style, producing contemplative opening movements. The Cello Sonata in G Minor by Sergei Rachmaninoff is written in the Romantic period style, with equal emphasis on the cello and piano. Sergei Prokofiev’s cello sonata, written later in the twentieth century, was more upbeat in tone, demonstrating that the cello’s sound can represent more than melancholy and tragedy.