Beethoven's first two cello sonatas are extraordinary. Although treasured by cellists, their ground-breaking originality has too often been underestimated and their many beauties overlooked by music-lovers more generally – so much so that Nigel Fortune found it necessary to make a special plea for them as ‘among the finest of Beethoven's early works … and still too little recognized as such’, describing the first movement of the G minor sonata in particular as ‘arguably [Beethoven's] most notable achievement to date’. Historically, they are important because they are the first true cello and piano duo sonatas to be composed by anyone. Although Haydn wrote at least two concertos for Anton Kraft, the leading cellist in his orchestra at Eisenstadt, he wrote no cello sonatas, and Mozart composed no solo music for cello, though he wrote fine, idiomatic cello parts in his chamber music. Even the cellist-composer Boccherini, who greatly extended the late-eighteenth-century repertoire for the instrument in his concertos and chamber music, was content to fall back on traditional continuo accompaniments in his sonatas. The only possible precedents for Beethoven, which he may or may not have known, were Bach's three sonatas for harpsichord and viola da gamba, bwv1027–9, precedents in the important sense that they represent a true partnership between the two instruments, instead of the unequal relationship between soloist and accompanying continuo customary in Baroque music.

Prague and Berlin

Beethoven composed the sonatas quickly during a two-month visit to the Prussian capital, Berlin, at the end of a successful concert tour organized by Prince Lichnowsky. The tour, like an earlier one the Prince had arranged for Mozart, included several weeks in Prague, and was of both symbolic and practical importance to Beethoven. Princess Lichnowsky's family, the Thuns, lived in Prague and had subscribed enthusiastically to the op. 1 piano trios, so his reputation had preceded him: ‘First of all, I am well, very well’, he told his brother Johann. ‘My art is winning me friends and renown, and what more do I want? And this time I shall make a good deal of money. I shall remain here for a few weeks longer and then travel to Dresden, Leipzig and Berlin.’