Adagio Cantabile

from Piano Sonata Op.13 Pathetique
from Piano Sonata Op.13 Pathetique
Ludvig van Beethoven

Product code:

RMD1286

£5.00

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Description

Ludvig van Beethoven (1770-1827) was the important link between the late Classical period and the beginning of the Romantic age. He composed in almost every genre, creating a body of orchestral, vocal and instrumental music which is still at the very heart of the repertoire into the 21st-century. He was happy to ‘tear-up’ the rule book of his time, creating one masterpiece after another.

Beethoven’s music has been transcribed for many instruments and ‘Beethoven 250’ in 2020, the 250th anniversary of his birth in 1770, has seen a resurgence of interest in the many double bass transcriptions of his work.

Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor (Op.13) was composed in 1798, when the composer was 27 years old, and was published the following year. It is one of Beethoven’s most celebrated and popular works and is dedicated to his friend Prince Karl von Lichnowsky. It was named Grande sonate pathétique (to Beethoven’s liking) by the original publisher, who was impressed by the sonata’s tragic sonorities and solemnity.

The second movement (Adagio Cantabile) has been transposed a semitone lower in this transcription, with a most beautiful and evocative theme which is repeated three times, and has echoes of an episode in Mozart’s Piano Sonata No.14 K.457. It emphasises the lyrical and cantabile range of the double bass across much of its range, with a beautifully supportive piano accompaniment. A more dramatic middle section contrasts the slower opening and closing music, ending slowly and with a gentle finality in the lower range of the double bass.

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Description

Ludvig van Beethoven (1770-1827) was the important link between the late Classical period and the beginning of the Romantic age. He composed in almost every genre, creating a body of orchestral, vocal and instrumental music which is still at the very heart of the repertoire into the 21st-century. He was happy to ‘tear-up’ the rule book of his time, creating one masterpiece after another.

Beethoven’s music has been transcribed for many instruments and ‘Beethoven 250’ in 2020, the 250th anniversary of his birth in 1770, has seen a resurgence of interest in the many double bass transcriptions of his work.

Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor (Op.13) was composed in 1798, when the composer was 27 years old, and was published the following year. It is one of Beethoven’s most celebrated and popular works and is dedicated to his friend Prince Karl von Lichnowsky. It was named Grande sonate pathétique (to Beethoven’s liking) by the original publisher, who was impressed by the sonata’s tragic sonorities and solemnity.

The second movement (Adagio Cantabile) has been transposed a semitone lower in this transcription, with a most beautiful and evocative theme which is repeated three times, and has echoes of an episode in Mozart’s Piano Sonata No.14 K.457. It emphasises the lyrical and cantabile range of the double bass across much of its range, with a beautifully supportive piano accompaniment. A more dramatic middle section contrasts the slower opening and closing music, ending slowly and with a gentle finality in the lower range of the double bass.

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About the Composer

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About the Arranger

Christopher Field has a lifetime’s experience of singing and teaching stretching back to 1953 when he was a chorister at the coronation of HM Queen Elizabeth II. Later he won a choral exhibition to Trinity College, Cambridge, a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music and an Arts Council of Great Britain award for postgraduate study with Frederick Husler in Switzerland. His subsequent career as a schoolmaster at Dulwich College was combined with work as a concert baritone, choral conducting, and teaching singing and double bass. For many years a number of his teaching works have been included in the graded examination syllabuses of the leading examination boards. Christopher studied with Juliet Cunningham and Diana Fryer. He began teaching the double bass in 1964 and has written numerous small pieces for teaching purposes some of which have, over the years, appeared in the graded syllabuses of the major examination boards. Primarily a singer, he has also transcribed arias and songs for double bass and piano.

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