Mozart Piano Sonatas: Transcribed For Cello

Here you will find a selection of Mozart‘s Piano Sonatas in versions (adaptations, transcriptions) for cello with simple accompaniment (or for cello duo). These 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.

Here is a list of the available transcribed sonatas:

1. K282 in Eb Major
2.       K283 in G Major
3.       K284 in D Major
4.       K309 in C Major
5.       K310 in A Minor
6.       K311 in D Major
7.       K330 in C Major
8.        K331 in A Major (including Rondo Alla Turca)
9.        K332 in F Major
10.        K333 in Bb Major
11.        K457 in C Minor
12.        K533 in F Major
13.        K545 in C Major
14.        K570 in Bb Major
15.        K576 in D Major

Apart from octave changes, key transpositions and bowing (articulation) adaptations, the “solo” cello parts are almost always an exact transcription of the piano parts and do not change no matter which instrument(s) accompany us. It is only for the cello duo accompaniments (see below) that we could use the word “arrangement” for these cello adaptations, because here it has often been necessary to change notes from the original piano parts (left hand) in order to adapt them to the (second) cello.

The biggest problem with making cello transcriptions of these amazing pieces (and piano music in general) is working out the accompaniments. Let’s look now at this subject in more detail:

REGISTER PROBLEMS

Transcribing piano sonatas for cello is truly a crazy project because to comfortably play the piano’s right hand voice on the cello we almost always need to take it down an octave. Very often, this transposition brings the cello part down into the same register as the piano’s left hand which, when the pitches of the two hands (voices) overlap, can create two serious problems:

• unsupportable dissonances, because dissonances of a seventh or a tenth are much less painful than when the same notes are played an octave closer together as seconds
• aural confusion, especially notable in the cello duo versions (see below) because of the identical timbres of the two cellos

In order to avoid these problems, we will sometimes need to take the piano’s left hand also down an octave.

Unfortunately, when both piano hands are taken down an octave, we can quickly find ourselves in very low, dark territory – the dreaded elephant/hippopotamus register – for both instruments. This can be avoided by raising up an octave either or both of the lowest piano voices/notes and/or the lowest passages for the cello. Although this changes the chord inversions and creates a lack of register variety, it is often preferable to the thick goo that is created when our registers are too low. Sometimes, when the cello goes down low, we can even play the chordal left-hand piano accompaniments an octave higher and in a higher register than the cello’s thematic material, to avoid this descent into the mud.

It would be so much easier to transcribe these sonatas for the violin as this would not require any transposition, but violinists don’t need any more repertoire as they already have more than 20 Mozart violin sonatas as well as 10 by Beethoven. We can consider these transcriptions as a slightly desperate, risky, and somewhat flawed attempt to give ourselves the soloistic, melodic voice of this wonderful music rather than being relegated to our normal Mozartean accompaniment role. The surprise is that these adaptations often work so well, which is why I continue doing more and more of them in spite of the many obstacles and difficulties.

Let’s look now at some of the other questions and problems associated with these transcriptions:

KEY CHANGES

Unlike for the Mozart Violin Sonatas, the cello transcriptions of his piano sonatas have almost always required transposition into a lower key in order to make them more comfortably playable. The piano is an extremely agile, virtuosic instrument and we need all the help we can get to make these sonatas playable on the cello, especially in the faster movements. The A Minor Sonata K310 is the only one that is presented in its original key and this key choice was probably an error of judgement as it would be much easier in a slightly lower key. All of the other sonatas are taken down by a minimum of a tone and a maximum of a fifth (K525).

SKELETAL ACCOMPANIMENTS: ON WHICH INSTRUMENT?

Another problem comes from the fact that 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.

In fact, the simplicity of these cello transcriptions of the Mozart Piano Sonatas may remind us of the Vivaldi Cello Sonatas  – or, in fact, any Baroque Period sonatas – in their original published form: unelaborated, as a simple melody line with a sparse (figured) bassline accompaniment and no keyboard right-hand. The beautiful, transparent textures that result are perfectly suited to music of the Baroque and Classical periods and it is worth noting that Mozart’s birth in 1756 was, surprisingly, only 15 years after Vivaldi’s death in 1741.

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)
• we can leave the accompaniment as a simple, skeletal keyboard version consisting simply of Mozart’s original sonata but with the removal of all of the melodic notes that have been given to the “solo” cello. Although written out on a double-stave as though for a keyboard, the right hand is normally quite empty because almost all of its notes have been given to the cello. These simple accompaniments can be arranged/played by many different instruments or ensembles.
• we can remove even more of the harmony notes and play the accompaniments on a second cello.

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

• the skeletal piano part and
• the alternative second cello accompaniment which converts each sonata into a cello duo.

Let’s look now more closely at the cello duo idea:

ACCOMPANIMENT BY A SECOND CELLO (OR BASSOON)

It is a revelation to discover how successfully these sonatas – especially the faster movements – can be converted into cello duos, although certain problems do need to be resolved in order to make successful, easily-playable accompaniment cello parts. Let’s look at some of these issues now:

THE ALBERTI BASSES:

The frequent Alberti bass lines that sound so great on keyboard instruments will often need to be modified. Perfectly designed for keyboard instruments, Alberti basses (especially the faster ones) are normally much less well suited to the cello. One (or two) octaves higher they would be much easier to play as we could use the thumb but using the thumb is much less practical in the lower registers.

Fortunately, however, finding an alternative accompaniment is usually not as difficult or as disruptive as we might have feared. In the above example, we can simply remove the slur and play the notes with separate bows in first position, starting upbow to facilitate the string crossing and using the open string. Below are some more examples of fast Alberti basslines from Mozart’s Piano Sonatas that may benefit from modifications to adapt them to the cello.

TO DOUBLE-STOP THE HARMONIES OR NOT? :

Playing the accompaniments on a monophonic instrument (cello, bassoon) requires that we answer the question of what to do with all the chords, doublestops, harmonies and counterpoint that we find in these accompaniments. Trial and error seems to show us that for standard, predictable, chordal harmonic progressions, doublestops in the second cello bass lines tend to “muddy the waters”, obscuring the harmonies rather than enriching them. This is possibly quite a personal, subjective opinion but in making these accompaniments it has appeared to the arranger that, in these types of passages, the more doublestops that are removed from these accompaniment parts, the cleaner, more transparent and hence “better” they tend to sound.

Even though this “thinning-out” process requires removing some of the harmonies and/or counter-melodies, the gain in transparency and clarity of texture is much greater than the loss of the additional harmony notes. It would appear that our ears tend to imagine these “missing elements” without any problem.

In other more chromatic, harmonically-curious passages, however, the second cello part needs to include doublestops in order not to lose the unique colour of these unexpected harmonies which our ears would never be able to imagine.

EQUAL OR UNEQUAL DUOS?

These Mozart Sonata transcriptions for cello are much more “concert(ante) pieces” than “chamber music” in the sense that the cello part (the first-cello) is given almost all of the thematic material, leaving the other voice in a purely accompaniment role, no matter on which instrument(s) it is played. This makes these cello duos very “unequal”. While the solo (first) cello parts are quite virtuosic, the second-cello accompaniments are normally “easy” enough to be playable by cellists of almost any level. If the transcription of Mozart’s original accompaniment line is not easy enough, then an “Easier Version” of the second-cello accompaniment is also offered in which the “hard” passages are simplified.

THE SLOW MOVEMENTS AS CELLO DUOS

The slow movements of these sonatas are normally ideally suited to accompaniment by a polyphonic (chordal) instrument like piano, harp or guitar. Even though an accompaniment by a second cello is usually not the optimal instrumentation for these slow movements, a second cello part is offered for each movement of all the Mozart piano sonatas available on this site in order to be able to play each entire sonata as a cello duo.