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Availability
CD: Forgotten
Records
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Ludwig van BEETHOVEN
(1770-1827)
Cello Sonata in F major, Op. 5 No. 1 (1796) [24:14]
Cello Sonata in G minor, Op. 5 No. 2 (1796) [22:50]
Cello Sonata in A major, Op. 69 (1808) [28:19]
Cello Sonata in C major, Op. 102 No. 1 (1815) [15:47]
Cello Sonata in D major, Op. 102 No. 2 (1815) [22:04]
Variations in G major on See the conqu’ring hero comes
from Handel’s Judas Maccabaeus WoO45 (1796) [12:49]
Variations in F major on Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen from
Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte Op. 66 (1798) [11:00]
Variations in E flat major on Bei Männern, welche Liebe
fühlen from Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte
WoO46 (1801) [10:29]
Ludwig Hoelscher (cello)
Elly Ney (piano)
rec. Lichterfelder Festsäle, Berlin, 1957
FORGOTTEN RECORDS FR501/02 [77:26 + 71:21] 
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Elly Ney (1882-1968) and Ludwig Hoelscher (1907-1996) recorded
all the Beethoven cello sonatas and the three sets of variations
for cello and piano in 1957, in Berlin. Both by then were veterans
of the recording studios, and their own duo had been in existence
for over two decades. Hoelscher had also been an integral member
of her piano quartet, with its various fiddle players, and had
made a couple of fine 78 sets.
Ney was at her height in the 1930s and Hoelscher too played
with great tonal resources in this decade. By the later 1950s,
Ney - though now in her mid-70s - was still in pretty good fettle,
much better than she was when, in the 1960s, and technically
compromised through old age, she embarked on a mammoth recording
schedule (see review).
Hoelscher, though only fifty, had lost the tonal warmth that
illuminated his earlier recordings. He only intermittently re-found
it. I’ve reviewed a sonata disc issued by Forgotten Records
in which he is partnered by Hans Richter-Haaser; the Brahms
sonata is not good, the youthful Strauss a considerable improvement.
These Ney-accompanied Beethoven performances show both the good,
and the less good, side of Hoelscher. His tone is now somewhat
pinched, and occasionally he and Ney make some odd tempo decisions.
The opening movement of the Op.5 No.1 sonata, for example, is
very deliberate, and its deliberation never really leads to
expressive depth - merely a kind of lassitude. Elsewhere however
tempo decisions seem spot on. The Scherzo of Op.69 is not too
heavily done; in fact it’s pleasingly accomplished. The
ensemble is predictably excellent and the seriousness of the
endeavour not to be underestimated. These are serious-minded,
musically accomplished performances. As ensemble performances
they are actually better than the technically superior, though
mismatched duo team of Piatigorsky and Solomon, who were brought
together to record the set - Piatigorsky and Hess would have
been a better fit. But in terms of dextrousness and tonal breadth,
they are not really in the same class as the Fournier-Schnabel
recordings, or indeed the remakes that the French cellist made
with one of Ney’s German successors, Wilhelm Kempff.
Nevertheless I applaud the return of these performances to the
catalogue in this way in unproblematic transfers, and as is
customary from this source, no notes - only web links for further
information. Bayer has certainly re-released at least three
of these sonata performances on disc; Opp. 69, 102/1 and 102/2
[Bayer 2228768] but I’ve not had access to them for comparative
purposes. In any case these ex-Telefunken LPs are heard in their
entirety here.
Jonathan Woolf
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