Beethoven – Cello Sonata in D, op 102 no 2

I was driving back from getting the car serviced yesterday (a stressful annual event, but relatively painless this year, unlike previous occasions - see http://uk.geocities.com/terrapin6004/mot_hell.htm) and I put on the radio. I found Radio 3, and heard this cello sonata for the first time (the recording by Rostropovitch and Richter), from midway through the second movement. Amazing. The funny thing was that I realised after just one bar that it was Beethoven.

Sometimes I hear something by Beethoven for the first time and I think “wow, I didn’t know Beethoven had ever written written anything like that”. When I think that it is always one of the late works. So it was with the contrapuntal last movement of this sonata.