Sonata for Piano and Cello, Edouard Lalo

I heard this piece earlier this evening played by Proff. Edberg and Claude at the faculty recital. I always enjoy seeing Proff. Edberg play because he plays with such passion, and you can see the joy on his face as he plays. The structure of this piece is important in giving life to the music and conveying its meaning. It gives the sense of confusion and searching from the beginning and getting closer and closer to finding something until the final resolve at the ending. While the cello part goes through a lot of change and provides the sense of confusion and searching, the piano part is simple and repetitious, and maintains a basic foundation so that the cello can go off on its own. It is playing chords, echoing the cello part, or providing a link to a new phrase. As far as the phrasing and structural breaks, most of the piece contains long, drawn out phrases with few structural breaks. This adds to the searching effect, as the phrase often comes very close to a structural break but never quite resolves in a cadence and thus maintains continuation. Changes in dynamics, texture, and density do occur, but mostly between phrases rather than during, as in one phrase being played with loud, long, bowings, and the next with soft pizzicato. Once a break is finally reached it either falls back down, illustrating the difficult struggle to go upward, or rises to a high point as it grows ever nearer to the final destination. Through the piece the rare cadential points become more and more final sounding until the final one at the end. The sense of searching for some final distant point is also created through the use of rhythmic and melodic motives ascending in sequential motion. The structural order of this piece clearly plays an important role in how it is heard.