Mozart Piano Sonata in C K545: Transcribed for Cello

Here is the sheet music for the entire Mozart Piano Sonata K545 in a transcription for cello with simple accompaniment.

When we take the melodic line out of any piano piece and give it to the cello, then the accompaniment that is left is very sparse and simple. Probably too simple for an accomplished pianist, who might well be both bored at having to take such a minor role as well as offended at having to accompany the thief who stole their beautiful piece. For this reason, the accompaniments to this sonata would probably be best suited to guitar or harp except for the fact that there are – in the first and third movements – some quite fast articulated passages which may be impossible or very difficult on those plucked instruments. Perhaps then the ideal accompaniment for those two movements is after all with the piano, while we will prefer the guitar (or harp) for the divine slow movement. The accompaniments offered here are simple skeletons which we can adapt to whichever instrument that might be playing them. We can even play them as cello duos!

MOVT I: ALLEGRO

A play-along audio of the piano accompaniment for this movement can be found here below. It starts with a very unimaginative two-bar introduction to allow us to both get ready and to know when to start. In this audio, both sections are repeated. If we actually download it then we can play it at different tempi with the wonderfully useful and simple Amazing Slowdowner program:

MOVT II: ANDANTE

What a beautiful movement this is ! The accompaniment part, almost entirely monophonic, is perfectly suited to harp (or guitar) and can be played with each note left to ring on, as if with a piano pedal. The original piano music is downloadable here from www.imslp.org.

Here is a play-along audio of the accompaniment played on the harp. A one-bar introduction has been added so that we can know when to start.

MOVT III: RONDO ALLEGRETTO