Mozart On The Cello

“his music is so perfect, so effortless, that it seems to have been plucked ready-made from the universe”
(Albert Einstein)

Mozart (1756-1791) must have been very unimpressed with the cello and cellists of his epoch. How else could we explain that despite his 23 piano concertos, 5 violin concertos (more or less), a double concerto for violin and viola (Sinfonia Concertante), concertos for oboe, bassoon, clarinet, flute (2), horn (4) and about 20 “mature” violin sonatas, he wrote nothing for the cello as the “solo” instrument ! The closest he came, apart from in his Divertimento for string trio K563, was in his three last string quartets (K575, 589 and 590). These so-called “Prussian” string quartets all have prominent cello parts, in deference to the King of Prussia who was an amateur cellist and to whom they were originally intended.

To remedy this situation, here is a selection of some of Mozart’s cosmic gems, stolen and transcribed for the cello as the principal melodic instrument. Apart from 17 of his Violin Sonatas, you will also find here transcriptions of some of his keyboard and vocal music. These are normally “transcriptions” rather than “arrangements” in the sense that the music is (almost) never rewritten in any way other than some key transpositions (applied always to entire works), octave changes of entire passages, or the revoicing of chords and double stops.

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MOZART’S VIOLIN SONATAS TRANSCRIBED FOR CELLO

If you like the Mozart Violin Sonatas, you are in good company: Einstein loved them and played them often (apparently with great passion). This is not surprising as they really are extraordinary, beautiful, amazing etc ……. words simply fail us. And what’s more, there are so many of them! If we include his early sonatas, written when he was still a child, then we can count almost 40 of them but the cellofun transcriptions only concern the later “mature” sonatas, of which 17 are presented here. 15 of these are transcribed in their entirety while from each of the K403 and K547 “beginners” sonatas (written for his wife Constanza and possibly never intended for publication), only one movement has been transcribed as stand-alone concert pieces, the others being considered not quite interesting enough.

Playing Mozart’s Violin Sonatas on the cello is like discovering an Aladdin’s cave of musical treasures. What started with the transcription of one sonata became an unstoppable avalanche: the pleasure (and surprise) of actually being able to play this music (and not only listen to it) was irresistible! The subject of transcribing violin music for cello is dealt with on its own dedicated page (click on the highlighted link).

Most of the sonatas presented here are in their original key, with the violin part simply transposed down an octave. Only in sonatas K378 and K454 have the keys been changed – in each case lowered by a minor third – to make them more playable. For those two sonatas, the transposed piano parts are also offered with the cello parts. For the other (non-transposed) sonatas, the piano parts are not available here but are available for free download from imslp.org.

Alternatively, the Henle Urtext editions – a model of german craftsmanship, attention to detail, and respect for both composer and performer – are a great addition to our music library. It is this wonderful Henle Urtext edition that has served as the original source for the “Literal Transcriptions” in which all of the notes (transposed down an octave), slurs, articulations, dynamics etc are taken directly from Mozart’s original manuscripts.

Very occasionally some notes are changed in these cello transcriptions to adapt them to the cello but this occurs almost exclusively for the revoicing of chords and double-stops, very occasionally in complex passage-work, but never in melodic passages.

In his Violin Sonatas, Mozart often changes the violin’s octave (register) with the same ease as if he were writing for piano. On the piano, playing the same music in different octaves doesn’t change the difficulty level at all but on a string instrument, once we get above the Neck Region the difficulty level goes up exponentially. Whereas for the violin this music lies always in the Neck Region, when transcribed for the cello all of the music that lies on the E string of the violin lies for us in the Intermediate and Thumb Regions on the A string (see Transcribing Violin Music for Cello). Therefore, playing these sonatas in the same key as the violin means that the cello register is often quite high. Surprisingly, however, it is no higher than the register of the Beethoven Cello Sonatas and Variations.

THE “EASIER VERSIONS”

In the “Easier Versions” of these sonatas, the passages involving higher register playing have normally been transposed down an extra octave so that the cellist, just like the violinist, basically never needs to leave the Neck Region. Occasionally a few notes in the Intermediate Region have been allowed to remain in the “Easier Versions”, but only when these notes are in a relatively easy context, with plenty of time to find them: it would be a shame to have to transpose an entire passage down an octave just to avoid th0se isolated notes.

The “Easier Versions” of these sonatas, with their transpositions down by two octaves of the high passages, are not only infinitely easier to play, but also they can easily sound just as good (if not better) than the “correct” one-octave transposition that is used almost always in the “Concert Versions” (Edited and Clean).

But it is not just the “high passages” that are difficult. In very tricky or fast passages, occasional notes in these “Easier Versions” have also sometimes been changed or removed to make the playing easier. Sometimes, rewriting just a few little passages in this way opens up this wonderful music to be played by any cellist, removing the fear of bombing out in (or stressing out over) a few tricky bits !

MOZART’S PIANO MUSIC TRANSCRIBED FOR CELLO

The subject of transcribing piano music for cello is dealt with on its own dedicated page (click on the highlighted link).

Mozart’s Piano Sonatas offer some wonderful opportunities for theft, and, surprisingly it is not only the beautiful slow movements that we can successfully adapt to the cello.

The biggest problem with making cello transcriptions of these amazing pieces is working out the accompaniments. When we take the melodic line out of a Mozart piano sonata and give it to the cello, the accompaniment that is left is normally quite sparse and simple as it is mainly just the left hand of the original piano sonata with only the occasional countermelody or harmony notes in the right hand. These skeletal accompaniments have the advantage that they can be adapted to many different instruments or ensembles but they are definitely too simple for an accomplished pianist, who might not only be bored at having to take such a minor role but also offended at having to accompany the thief who stole their beautiful piece from them.

Because of the polyphonic simplicity and sparse textures of our accompaniment scores, we might think that they would be best suited to guitar or harp. This is certainly true for the slow movements, which sound magnificent on the harp, but in the faster first and third movements’ accompaniment lines (normally the piano’s left hand) there are very often some fast articulated passages which may be impossible or very difficult on those plucked instruments.

If we therefore exclude the harp and guitar for these outer, faster movements, we have several alternatives for making an effective accompaniment:

we can add notes to the treble stave (pianist’s right hand) to complete the harmonies and enrich the texture, thus making a more complete accompaniment part for a piano or for any available instrumental ensemble
or we can remove even more of the harmony notes and play the accompaniments on a second cello

It is a revelation to discover how successfully many of the faster movements can be converted into cello duos although the frequent Alberti bass lines that sound so great on keyboard instruments will often need to be modified. While these Alberti bass lines are perfectly designed for keyboard instruments, they (especially the faster ones) are normally much less well suited to the cello. Fortunately, however, finding an alternative accompaniment is not as difficult or as disruptive as we might have feared:

Here are two more examples of this problem (both taken from his Piano Sonata K331) with their possible solutions:

Lacking the pianistic knowledge necessary to competently fill out the piano parts, the cellofun.eu accompaniments to these sonatas are normally offered in the following two simplest versions:

the skeletal piano score with all of Mozart’s original piano notes that have not been given to the cello
as second-cello parts

Here below is a list of all the cellofun.eu transcriptions for cello (plus simple accompaniment) of Mozart’s Piano Sonatas:

K310 in A Minor
K331 in A Major (including Rondo Alla Turca)
K332 in F Major
K333 in Bb Major
K545 in C Major
K576 in D Major

MOZART’S VOCAL MUSIC TRANSCRIBED FOR CELLO

The subject of transcribing vocal music for cello is dealt with on its own dedicated page (click on the highlighted link).

TRILLS, ORNAMENTS, AND GRACE NOTES

Mozart’s music, in true Rococo style, is full of ornamentation and grace notes, however it is only in the “Literal Versions” that these grace notes and ornaments are always notated exactly as Mozart wrote them. In the “playing” versions (Edited, Easier and Clean), they are often written as played by the editor. There are several reasons for this:

trills on very short notes have often been substituted for mordents or turns, to compensate for the difference in size and reaction time between violin and cello: the cello is just not as quick and agile as the violin …….. we wouldn’t expect a french horn to play like a saxophone, or a double bass like a cello!
the original notation of many grace notes is often quite ambiguous with respect to how exactly we might want to play these notes (their exact position rhythmically). Those same little grace notes, always notated before the principal note, can be played either before or on the beat. They can also be played in a variety of lengths anywhere between very short and very long. The following examples illustrate some of these possibilities:

This ambiguity can be a delight, but it can also be a source of confusion. Therefore, for the sake of simplicity and clarity, in the playing versions of these Sonatas, those grace notes that are not played before the beat have been notated as “real” notes.

Turns also give us many possibilities for where exactly we might want to place the notes. For slower turns it can help to use a quintuplet to avoid making our ornament sound laboured, pedantic and mathematical. For rapid, sparkling, virtuosic turns the quintuplet is probably not necessary:

Even if we decide to make a quintuplet turn, we can still sometimes have some doubts about where exactly to put the quintuplet notes. The second option is definitely more sparkling and lively but the fact that the last note of each bar is now a 16th note (instead of an 8th note) could be perhaps considered as taking excessive liberty with Mozart’s notation:

Independently of whether we use quintuplets or not, the multiple possibilities for the rhythmical placement of the notes in turns can cause headaches for both interpreters and editors:

The editing (writing out with an exact notation) of the ornaments and grace notes is not perhaps the ideal solution as it imposes definitively the editor’s decisions on the player. Probably it would be better for the “Clean Version” to have always the original notation of ornaments and grace notes, but the “Clean” version is always composed of the identical notes and rhythms as the “Edited” version, with all other editorial suggestions removed. Unfortunately, because grace notes and ornaments are “notes and rhythm”, the decisions made for the “Edited Concert Versions” also apply to the “Clean Versions”. Therefore, only in the “Literal Versions” are the grace notes shown as Mozart notated them.

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Mozart was not very trusting of his contemporary cellists’ abilities so he rarely took the cello into its higher register. But it does happen occasionally and here below are links to compilations of passages from his original music for cello, in which the use of Thumbposition and the Intermediate Region of the fingerboard is either essential, advisable or possible:

Mozart On The Cello

“his music is so perfect, so effortless, that it seems to have been plucked ready-made from the universe” (Albert Einstein)

“his music is so perfect, so effortless, that it seems to have been plucked ready-made from the universe”
(Albert Einstein)