Mozart Piano Sonatas: Transcribed for Cello and Simple Accompaniment

Here you will find the complete collection of Mozart‘s Piano Sonatas in versions for cello with simple accompaniment. The accompaniment parts are always offered in two alternative versions: for piano (harp, guitar) or for a second cello (see below for more explanation). 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.

This has been a project of several years. If a sonata is not yet completed, it will be soon, as all of the movements are in the pipeline in different stages of completion. Ultimately, all of the sonatas will have their play-along audio accompaniment as well as the recordings with the cello. It is only when the audio recordings of the cello versions are present that we can consider the edition as fully “completed” because it is only when we record/perform them that we find out really what fingerings and bowings work the best.

Here is a list of the transcribed sonatas. The numbers in parenthesis after the K (Köchel chronological catalogue number) are the revised, more chronologically correct K numbers:

Fantasia in C Minor K475

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 normally only for the cello duo accompaniments (see below) that we could use the word “arrangement” for these cello adaptations, because in these cello duo versions, it has often been necessary to change notes from the original piano parts (left hand) in order to adapt them to the (second) cello. For the “solo cello” parts, it is only very occasionally that some of the original piano notes have been altered in passages that would otherwise be too difficult, if not actually impossible, to play on the cello.

Playing these piano sonatas takes us into a very different world from that of vocal transcriptions as we need now – especially in the faster movements – to fly up and down our fingerboard (and across the strings) with the same lightness and virtuosity as a pianist. This requires enormous agility in both hands and is not an easy task on the cello. Fortunately, the music is so wonderful that it not only inspires us to overcome these difficulties but also has the beneficial side-effect of helping us to develop a more virtuosic technique while simultaneously having a load of fun.

And for the pure enjoyment of these sonatas, without the need for a virtuosic technique or intensive practice, we can always play the “Easier Versions” in which all of the high passages are transposed down into a more comfortable register and in which also the fast, tricky passages are often simplified to make them more easily playable.

These are “concert pieces” rather than “chamber music”. Here, not only is the music sometimes as technically demanding as the concerto repertoire but also we have the absolute musical protagonism almost all of the time. In the concerto repertoire, the soloist has the orchestral tuttis in which to rest and recover but in these sonatas we sometimes have so much relentless protagonism that we don’t even have a moment of rest in which to do a pageturn !

We might expect that his “early” piano sonatas would be, like his early violin sonatas, immature works of his childhood, but this is not at all the case. While his later sonatas are, effectively, more complex, longer and more “romantic” than the early ones, even the First Sonata (K279) is still a wonderful, fully mature work, although written at the end of 1774 when Mozart was still only 18 years old. Just consider that Mozart’s three famous violin concertos K216-219 (definitely not immature works) were all composed just one year later, at the end of 1775. Note that the original Köchel Numbers of his early piano sonatas are not correct in terms of their composition dates. The revised, correct “K” number for these sonatas would be around K189.

Although some of Mozart’s opening “themes”, especially those of the final (third) movements, may seem simple and childish, he almost always finds a way to very quickly develop them into astonishing, interesting and beautiful music. This reminds me of Bobby McFerrin, who does exactly the same: taking any little boring sequence of notes given by a member of his audience and transforming it into something magical. So don’t be put off by some of the beginnings of the movements!

Apart from the technical difficulties of playing the faster movements, 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:

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 cello 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 have continued doing more and more of them in spite of the many obstacles and difficulties.

Sometimes, Mozart will change octaves suddenly with the same thematic material, as if he was writing a duo for two voices (soprano and tenor). On the piano, these sudden changes of register are not especially difficult, but on the cello, these sudden leaps into the higher fingerboard regions can cause us significant technical problems. Sometimes in the cellofun transcriptions, it has been considered that the intonation danger provoked by these register (octave) changes outweighs the added musical interest of the higher octave. In these cases, we have kept the cello part in the lower octave. The following example of this situation comes from the first movement of the Piano Sonata Nº 7 K309. This same passage has already appeared twice previously in the movement, without the octave register changes.

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 and the Sonata in F K280 are the only ones that are presented in their original key. Certainly in the case of K310, 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.

Often, the right hand stave is empty but this doesn’t mean that the pianist is obliged to use only the left hand. The notes can be divided between both hands, which makes playing these parts a lot easier. In K570, the piano part has been written out in this way, using both hands where Mozart’s original only used the left hand.

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.

To get an idea of what these sonatas sound like in their cello duo versions, all three movements of Mozart’s First (K279) and Third Sonatas, K281 have been recorded by the transcriber in both the cello duo and the cello-piano/harp versions.