The really surprising thing about this chamber music partnership, documented here in the form of their recordings of Beethoven's complete output for cello and piano, is that it ever existed at all. The duo formed by the Austrian pianist Friedrich Gulda (born 1930) and the French cellist Pierre Fournier (1906-1986) does not resemble in any way the usual notions of what such a duo might be expected to look like. Gulda, in the traditional part of his repertory, ploughs a decidedly Austrocentric furrow. Fournier, for his part, never left the world in any doubt as to his Frenchness, either in his choice of repertory or in his instrumental style. Furthermore the two musicians were separated by a generation: Fournier's childhood was spent in the last years of the old, imperial Europe, Gulda's in the terrible days of totalitarianism and the Second World War. If a computer programme existed to build musical partnerships, on the lines of the allegedly successful ones that bring marriage partners together, this particular couple would never have stood a chance of being introduced to each other. The marital analogy is not inappropriate to Beethoven's works for cello and piano, for none of them belong in the category of sonatas for cello with piano accompaniment. The composer's autograph of the C major Sonata op. 102 no. 1 bears the heading "Free Sonata for piano and violoncello". A good case could be made for describing them, rather, as piano sonatas with independent part for cello. The partnership between the two instruments is truly an equal one - and that applies to the players too. In view of the repertory, the cellist is bound to involve himself in chamber-music partnerships. Pierre Fournier looked on this as the essence of cello-playing rather than merely a necessary evil. He formed partnerships with such pianists as Wilhelm Backhaus, Wilhelm Kempff, Dinu Lipatti and Artur Schnabel. Still in the early years of fame as a soloist, in 1943, he seized the opportunity to succeed Pablo Casals in the legendary trio whose other members were Jacques Thibaud and Alfred Cortot. His preference, late in his life, for playing with his son Jean-Pierre (who adopted the name Jean Fonda) can be explained, at least partly, by the wish to cement a permanent partnership without the troubles of the soloist's schedule. The alliance with Friedrich Gulda came in the interim, around 1960, and led to some 30 concerts and these recordings. Obviously, given the nature of the piano, Friedrich Gulda had less need to join up in duos or trios. It is extraordinary, nevertheless, that his association with Pierre Fournier is the only such one he has ever formed in the region of Classical music. At a later date the cellist Heinrich Schiff tried to persuade Gulda to join him in a new recording of the Beethoven cello sonatas, but in vain. Gulda said, "Don't build up your hopes, I was so spoilt by Fournier that it's out of the question for me, great as it might be." The musical context in which Gulda is prepared to work with other musicians is the very different one of jazz and "free improvisation", which has been as important to him since the '70s as Classical music (sometimes even more important). Any ambiguity in Gulda's remark about Fournier's effect on him is easily cleared up. As he said himself: "He was the more seasoned, and my superior. I owe him a great deal. I learnt a huge amount from him, musically, about taking things seriously, and he guided me, kindly but also very strenuously." Of no other musician does Gulda speak with so much respect, affection and warmth as Pierre Fournier (and his wife Lydia). At times, at least, the partnership must have had something of a father-son relationship. Gulda, who never loses a chance to cultivate his nonconformism, admits that the Fourniers were the first people to teach him some manners, such as pressing his tailcoat, not shooting his mouth, and shaving before going on the platform. "It's not unimportant for someone as young as that to discover that behaving barbarously is not the only way of getting on in life or on the stage, in other words that one should play with good manners, with refinement." Psychologists may care to ponder whether the range of things in which Fournier acted as mentor has anything to do with the fact that Gulda's father also played the cello, though as an amateur, and was the budding pianist's first duet partner. These recordings demonstrate with almost too much clarity one of the qualities of Fournier's style as cellist and as musician in general: discretion. He takes to extremes the jest that a cello will growl on the low notes and whinny on the top ones. There has probably been no other cellist in our century who has achieved so perfect a balance of registers, so immaculate a line. That is undoubtedly the aim of the French school of cello-playing, founded by the Duport brothers and culminating in names such as Servais, Franchomme, Bazelaire (Fournier's teacher) and Maréchal; but Fournier's even and yet eminently poetic playing opened yet another dimension. Dedicating her novel ‘’La Naissance du jour’’ to him, Colette wrote: ‘’To M. Pierre Fournier, who sings more beautifully than any singer…’’ It may strike us as a dubious watchword for the interpretation of Beethoven's cello sonatas, but if a cellist takes seriously the categorical equality of the two instruments in these works, then he must simply take his consideration for the weaker partner to the point of self-effacement. The weaker partner is the piano, which cannot call upon expressive tones like snarling, growling or whinnying - it does not even command a luxuriant vibrato or unequal temperament. It is the piano as instrument (not, be it said, Gulda the pianist) which requires the cellist to exercise this extreme discipline in the deployment of his instrument's expressive capacity. Fournier accepts the restraint nobly and as a musician's duty. Gulda, for his part, alleviates his disadvantage with an uncommonly lucid, analytically enlightened style of playing, without allowing the arcs of thematic tension to slacken. Over the past 30 years we have learnt to take such an approach to Beethoven almost for granted, but at the date of these recordings it may well have disconcerted many listeners, accustomed as they were to a more Romantic and confessional image of Beethoven. Unlikely as the partnership of Fournier and Gulda may have looked at first glance, therefore, it proved to be an early instance of that embrace of French clarté and German analytic probing which has characterized a whole series of performances in the last three decades - performances of the highest quality and most far-reaching influence, from René Leibkowitz's dramatic rethinkings of Beethoven to Pierre Boulez's forays into the world of Wagner. Fournier and Gulda made the first breach in the wall to let this modern wave in. END
