Elegia
- Instrumentation
- Cello, Piano
- Composed
- 1918
- Publisher
- Musica Brasilis (free facsimile of an early print, with list of Gallet's works sold by Casa Arthur Napoleão, Rio de Janeiro; CC BY-SA; ISMN 979-0-69652-007-4)
Purchase or download
About this piece
Luciano Gallet, a Rio de Janeiro pianist who studied with Henrique Oswald and took harmony lessons from Darius Milhaud, dated this Elegia 1918, the year he began his career as a composer. It is the only cello piece in the list of his works sold by Casa Arthur Napoleão that opens the early print Musica Brasilis offers free. Over rippling sixteenth notes in the piano, the cello sings a long Lento melody in E minor, presses forward in a Poco più animato that climbs into the treble clef for a fortissimo climax, and then returns to the opening tune before a quiet ending.
Technical overview
Lento in 3/4 and E minor, with sections marked Poco più animato, Calmo, Tempo I and Meno. Most of the line sits in the lower and middle positions in bass clef, but the agitated middle section moves into the treble clef and rises to C, D and a sustained fortissimo E at the top of the staff. Long slurred phrases, a few dotted rhythms and eighth-note triplets, and constant crescendo-diminuendo hairpins call for even bow control.
Technical focus
- Bow Control
- Collaboration with Piano
- Dotted Rhythms
- Hairpin Dynamics
- Legato
- Shifting
- Tempo Changes
- Thumb Position
- Treble Clef
- Triplets