Chamber

Beethoven’s five cello sonatas make up a satisfying complete set, taking in every main period of his creative life. Op. 5 consists of a powerful pair of early works, commissioned by the cello-playing King of Prussia; Op. 69 is a vintage example of the composer’s expansive middle-period style; and the Op. 102 twosome features, in No. 2 in D major, an Adagio slow movement exploring wondrous late-Beethoven depths, followed by a finale – first a single fugue, then a double one – of near-impossible mastery.

Nicolas Altstaedt and his exceptional accompanist, Alexander Lonquich, respond to this range of demands with wide and deep resources of musicianship, convincingly enhanced by a period approach. Altstaedt’s instrument is gut-stringed; and the 1820s Conrad Graf fortepiano, remarkably full-toned and gremlin-free for the period, balances with the cello in a way that a modern concert grand wouldn’t quite, allowing Lonquich’s wonderfully alert playing to operate on the kind of equal terms Beethoven intended (although the recorded balance perhaps places the cello a shade closer than needed).

Highlights in the early sonatas include Altstaedt’s whirring high-speed passagework in Op. 5 No. 2’s finale,