Sonata for Cello and Piano in A-flat major
- Instrumentation
- Cello, Piano
- Composed
- 1896
- Duration
- 22'
- Publisher
- Public Domain
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About this piece
Henriette Renié's Cello Sonata in A-flat major is, per Palazzetto Bru Zane, the only work the harpist-composer wrote without the harp. Bru Zane's programme note says its first performance 'seems to have' been at a Société nationale de musique concert at the Salle Pleyel on 15 February 1896, played by the cellist Louis Feuillard and the pianist Thibault, with the composer presenting herself as a man, 'J. Renié'. L'Écho de Paris reported a 'success for the Sonata of a new musician, J. Renié', though critics found the piano covered the cello. Twenty years later, still unpublished, it won the Institut's Prix Chartier (1916). It was then published under her own name by Louis Rouhier in Paris (1919, with US registration in 1920), and Paul Bazelaire played it at the Salle Érard on 14 February 1920. Bru Zane hears it as openly in César Franck's line, quoting his Violin Sonata and using cyclic form. MusicWeb's Stephen Greenbank called it 'heavily romantic, sensuously passionate and richly soused with lyricism'. Recordings include Aude Pivôt and Flore Merlin (Ligia, 2017) and a filmed 2022 Palazzetto Bru Zane concert by Victor Julien-Laferrière and Théo Fouchenneret.
Technical overview
Three movements (I. Allegro appassionato; II. Andante, in C minor; III. Allegro con fuoco), about 22 minutes. It is a large late-Romantic cyclic sonata in the Franck tradition, with a heavy piano part that the cellist must project over, sustained lyrical playing across the whole range, and virtuosic outer movements.