Elegia sulla morte di Antonio Rubinstein (1894‪)‬

The Elegy on the death of Anton Rubinstein, for two cellos, written by Carlo Alfredo Piatti (1822—1901) is a poignant expression of the pain the composer must have felt at the news of his friend’s death, in the first days of November, 1894.

The piece begins with an almost sentence-like cadence, in C minor, with the first cello sounding the church’s bells, and the second cello answering with chest-tearing cries of pain. The true elegy start on a Dactyl rhythm and develops into four increasingly tense episodes before seeing the return of the opening melody. But not all is bleak: a shift to C major brings us into the heavens now enriched by the music and pure soul of our friend, and while the end is once more in C minor, we know inside us that he will always be with us.

This publication is the second one celebrating the 200th anniversary of Piatti’s birth, and comes in a single file containing both parts and score.