Saint-Saëns: Sonata No. 2 in F major, Op. 123

After his first cello sonata of 1872 (HN 1057) had fast gained popularity, the publisher kept asking the composer to write a second sonata for this scoring. But it was only in March 1905, in the mild climate of Algeria, that Saint-Saëns finally relented and composed a large sonata with four movements. He personally thought it superior to the first sonata and even believed that its third movement, the "Romanza", was an equivalent to the famous "Swan" in the "Carnival of the Animals" (HN 943). However, this work is still overshadowed by the first sonata, not least because the second places greater technical and artistic demands on cellists. Our Henle Urtext edition, the first text-critical edition of the work ever, now offers cellists a chance to rediscover this composition.