Schlemüller Elegie Op 18 No. 1 for Cello and Piano

Hugo Schlemüller subtitled his Op. 18 set "1st to 4th position", and the Elégie that opens it does exactly what that promises. A light-hearted G major melody, a warmer and more passionate middle section, and shifting that is planned into the writing rather than left to chance. This is a newly engraved edition of the original cello and piano version, published by Zimmermann in Leipzig in 1911 and out of print ever since.

The solo line sits around Grade 3 to 4. Schlemüller keeps the cellist moving between first and fourth position throughout, and because he wrote the piece as a study in disguise, every shift arrives at a musically obvious moment. The piano part carries the harmony and the pulse without ever crowding the cello, so a pupil can hear their own line clearly in rehearsal.

At around three minutes it slots in anywhere: a festival class, a school concert, a lesson-end run-through, or a recital where you need something short and lyrical between two bigger works. The piece has been almost entirely forgotten. There are no commercial recordings, and only three of the six pieces in Op. 18 have been scanned on IMSLP, so a candidate walking into a festival with this on the stand is playing something the adjudicator has almost certainly never heard.

Check the score and parts preview images above, then watch the complete score video below. They'll give you a clear picture of the engraving quality and overall difficulty before you buy.

Key features

• Instrumentation: cello and piano
• Difficulty: approximately ABRSM Grade 3–4
• Duration: approximately 3 minutes
• Style focus: first to fourth position, planned shifting, bow retakes to the heel for new up bows, cantabile phrasing across string crossings
• Format: PDF download, piano score and cello part

Useful for pupils working towards Grade 3 or 4 who need a lyrical piece with genuine shifting in it, and for festival and competition classes where an unfamiliar title is an advantage. It also works as a short slow item in a school concert or a pupils' recital. Teachers introducing fourth position will find the middle section does the job without the pupil noticing they're doing exercises.