Sonata for Cello and Piano (Left Hand) "Les Adieux"
- Instrumentation
- Cello, Piano
- Composed
- 2013
- Duration
- 20'13''
- Publisher
- Josef Weinberger
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About this piece
Hough wrote this sonata in 2013 at Steven Isserlis's request for a pianist friend who had lost the use of his right hand; the friend recovered and never played it, so Hough gave the premiere himself with Isserlis at Kronberg, followed by Tetbury and Wigmore Hall. The piano part is for the left hand alone, which gives the work its dark, distinctive texture. Hough says the subtitle 'Les Adieux' is not programmatic but underlines the sonata's melancholy and conjures ghosts of Beethoven and Dussek. It plays continuously in three related sections, opening with the cello's pizzicato A string and ending with the cello pizzicato on the open C string.
Technical overview
The booklet note (Isserlis) describes an opening pizzicato idea that grows to a passionate climax, a central section marked 'Im Legendenton' with an Eastern flavour in lyrical semiquavers shared between the instruments, and a fiery cello cadenza before a gentle coda.