Score and part
Description
ed. by Barbara Gabler
General remarks on Mayers cello sonatas
Emilie Mayer composed a total of 13 sonatas for cello and piano (in each case with the piano mentioned first in the title), but dated and gave opus numbers only to three of them. All three were published by Verlag Bote in Berlin during the composer’s lifetime. With the exception of the sonata in F major, of which a version for violin had already appeared in 1863, the cello sonatas date from the last decade of her life, the period between 1873 and 1883. They are dedicated to a relative, friends and well-known cultural and political figures in public life. One of the three above-mentioned sonatas, op. 40, is also in C major, but is not identical to the one published here.
Observations on the Sonata in C major
The composition begins with an introduction, a 16-bar lento section, with which one might say Mayer improvises her way into the piece. This form of preludising prior to playing the actual composition was by no means rare in the 19th century, and there is even a recording of Johannes Brahms in which (amid heavy static) he can be heard improvising an introduction to an actual work. Nowadays, apart from concerto cadenzas, improvised passages in compositions are somewhat unusual and special.
