Beethoven: Romance (Romanze) Nº 1 in G Op 40: Transcribed for Cello
Duration: 7-8 minutes
Difficulty Level: 6/10
Here is the sheet music and play-along audio accompaniment (played on the piano) for Beethoven‘s beautiful Romance (Romanze) Nº 1 in G Op 40 for violin and orchestra in a transcription for cello in the original key.
In this original key, several passages of this violin piece lie quite high for the cello. But transposing it into a lower key is impractical because of the low-register double-stopped passages which constitute some of its main thematic material. These double-stops require the use of the open strings, which means that the only possible transposition would be down a fifth. But if we were to do this, those thematic doublestops would be played on the G and C strings, which would make the piece sound like a comical “elephant romance” rather than the beautiful and profound song that it is. Therefore, we basically have no choice but to play this piece in its original key: the “Performance” version maintains the high passages whereas the “Easier” version takes them down another octave.
In the “Performance Versions,” some of the doublestopped passages have been slightly modified in order to make them more playable on the cello. These modifications are more significant in the “Easier Version”. To make an even easier version, we could remove the lower voice of the double stops and give those notes to the piano, but this has not been done here. Eliminating the double stops (as we have done in many other violin pieces by giving the lower notes to the piano) would be unreasonable in this piece for anything other than the very easiest cello version because here the doublestops constitute the principal theme and, what’s more, are played unaccompanied.
The opening theme sounds very much as though it starts on the first beat of the bar although it actually starts on the third beat. This curious situation, similar to that of a Gavotte (but with a totally different mood) continues until bar 21 and then returns again when the first theme comes back in bars 36-56 and again from bar 75 to the end. In fact, so much of this Romanza seems to have this characteristic that it could almost be written out entirely with the barlines displaced by two beats (so that it would start on the first beat of the bar).
The piano accompaniment part is identical to that of the original violin version, but it is offered here also:
The piano and/or orchestral accompaniment parts can also be downloaded from imslp.org.
Here are two play-along audio accompaniments, with grateful thanks to Carlos Morales and his “Piano Music” YouTube channel. Playing this piece with a pre-recorded accompaniment is complicated, not only because of the fact that the cello starts the piece all alone, but also because there are four other quite long sections in which the cello also plays alone. After each of these ” a capella” (without accompaniment) sections, we would have no way of knowing how to time the piano’s entrance without the help of extra notes that have been added under the cello to give us rhythmic references.
At the beginning, the piano gives us four quarter-notes as an introduction so that we can know when to start. During the cello’s playing of the first theme and of the other solo interventions, the piano gives the first beat of each bar so that we are always in time for the next piano entry. Because of these extra “cue” notes, we can only really use this accompaniment as a practice tool (not for performance).
In this one audio track, the accompaniment is played twice, the first time slower than the second time. For the faster version, start the playback at 8’35”. If we download these accompaniments, we can play them back at any speed with an app like “The Amazing Slowdowner”.