Two players is all you need to make great chamber music. On today’s program, we have two duos by Zoltán Kodály and Beethoven, showcasing how extraordinary a small ensemble can be. By the time Zoltán Kodály composed this duo on the eve of WWI, he had spent more than a decade researching the folk music of his native Hungary, which produced works of unique color and flavor. This music doesn’t require intellectual rigor of its listeners, only a willingness to be swept up by its passionate harmonies and infectious rhythms. Beethoven’s five Sonatas for Cello and Piano revolutionized the role of the cello in music — they are the first works in which the cello is an equal partner to the keyboard. His first two cello sonatas were written for King Frederick William the Second, an amateur cellist, and patron to Mozart and Haydn. After the pleasing and delightful first Sonata in F major, the second Sonata, dark and brooding, in the serious key of g minor, foretold Beethoven’s transformative journey into the full-blown Romantic age to come.
Disparate Duos

Bella Hristova (Photo: Lisa-Marie Mazzucco)
Playlist
Zoltán Kodály: Duo for Violin and Cello, Op. 7
Bella Hristova, violin; Nicholas Canellakis, cello
Ludwig van Beethoven: Sonata in G minor for Cello and Piano, Op. 5, No. 2
Paul Watkins, cello; Alessio Bax, piano