The last formal position of Grieg's career was as conductor of the Bergen Harmoniske Selskab from 1880 to 1882, after which his activities centered around composition and concert tours. In 1883, newly freed from official commitments, Grieg composed his only Cello Sonata, op. 36, the Walzer-Capricen for piano duet, op. 37, a second set of Lyric Pieces, op. 38, and he worked on a second piano concerto (never completed).

Grieg wrote twenty years later that he did not rate the Cello Sonata very highly, "because it does not betoken any forward step in my development." As has been noted previously in these pages, he was not as comfortable in the extended forms of a sonata, as in the lyrical miniatures that were his strength. He may have been concerned about his struggle with form, but his remarks cannot detract from the work's singing melodies, expressive writing for both cello and piano, and Norwegian folk-like characteristics. Moreover, Grieg thought enough of the work to perform it several times with notable cellists.

In addition to playing the première with Friedrich Grützmacher in Dresden, October 22, 1883, Grieg performed it soon after in Leipzig with Julius Klengel, and twice in Christiania two years later with his older brother John Grieg, to whom the work is dedicated. The composer became acquainted with Pablo Casals through his friend Julius Röntgen, Dutch composer, conductor and pianist, and heard Casals and Röntgen play the Sonata in Amsterdam. The Cello Sonata continued to appear on Casals's recital programs for years.

Both the first and last movements of this three-movement Sonata are based on a free sonata form, and both movements contain rich chromaticism and several surprising jazz-foreshadowing sonorities. The first movement begins as if it had already been in progress and the listener just now "tuned in"—a kind of opening favored by many Romantic composers. The second theme is like a folk song, as is the lyrical secondary theme in the last movement. In the slow movement, one imagines the sound of a harp upon hearing the solo piano opening and subsequent accompaniment figures. The last movement opens with a solo cello recitative before breaking into a sprightly dance.

Although the Sonata has had its detractors, it has also had supporters. The Boston cellist Wulf Fries, a close associate of Artur Rubinstein, liked the Sonata so much that he wrote to Grieg asking for more of the same kind. Grieg replied that he was ill and had written nothing else for cello, although arrangements for cello of some of his pieces had been made by Goltermann. The great scholar William S. Newman in The Sonata Since the Classic Era regarded it as one of Grieg's best-sounding, most-rewarding sonatas.

—©Jane Vial Jaffe