Beethoven Sonatine WoO 44a transcription

In honor of the Beethoven 250th birthday year I made two new transcriptions of the Sonatine WoO 44a that the young Beethoven wrote for mandolin and harpsichord. I was surprised to see that Van Magazine listed it as number five on their list of Beethoven's ten worst pieces. While I agree with their other nine choices, this charming little Sonatine has always held a special place in my heart.

I made a transcription of it a couple of years ago for our Summer Strings orchestra, and it was a real favorite (people referred to it as "Woo"). Because of this recent ranking, I decided to re-work the Sonatine as a piano trio in two versions: one for typical piano trio (violin, cello, and piano), and one for violin, viola, and piano, so that non-mandolin-playing people who don't have a string orchestra at hand can play it as a piece of chamber music.



The music is available on this page of the IMSLP, and in the meanwhile you can listen to a computer-generated recording of the violin, viola, and piano version here.