Romberg - Souvenir de St. Pétersbourg, Op. 77 (Urtext Edition, Quintet Version)
Romberg - Souvenir de St. Pétersbourg, Op. 77 (Urtext Edition, Piano Version)

Bernhard Romberg (1767–1841) was born in Dinklage, Germany, into a musical family. His father, Anton Romberg, played bassoon and cello and gave Bernhard his first cello lessons. By the age of seven, Romberg was performing publicly. He toured Europe with his cousin, violinist-composer Andreas Romberg, and later joined the Münster Court Orchestra. In 1790, both cousins entered the court orchestra of the Prince Elector Archbishop of Cologne in Bonn, under Kapellmeister Andrea Luchesi. There, they met the young Beethoven, who admired and respected Bernhard Romberg as a musician.

Romberg introduced several innovations to cello design and performance. He lengthened the fingerboard, flattened the side under the C string for freer vibration (a feature that later became the “Romberg bevel”), promoted the use of half- and three-quarter-size cellos for children, and simplified cello notation to three clefs (bass, tenor, and treble), replacing the many clefs used by earlier composers such as Luigi Boccherini.

Romberg is best known among cellists for his Three Sonatas for Two Cellos, Op. 43, and Three Trios for Solo Cello, Viola, and Cello, Op. 38, originally composed as student works and later adapted with piano accompaniment by Friedrich Gustav Jansen. Unfortunately, much of Romberg’s music has been classified as “student” repertoire for over a century, partly due to the highly abbreviated and altered concerto editions by Carl Schroeder and Friedrich Grützmacher. While these adaptations helped preserve the concertos as teaching tools, they also led to their dismissal as works of lesser quality. In reality, Romberg’s ten cello concertos stand alongside the finest of Mozart’s and Beethoven’s piano concertos in craftsmanship, featuring well-developed tuttis, elegant orchestration, and remarkable melodic inventiveness.

Romberg’s friendship with the Vielgorsky (Wielhorski) brothers in St. Petersburg was particularly fruitful. In 1826, he published his Concerto Suisse (No. 7, Op. 44), dedicated to Matvey Vielgorsky (1794–1866). In the late 1830s, he composed Souvenir de St. Pétersbourg, Op. 77, based on two songs by Matvey’s brother, Mikhail Vielgorsky (1788–1856). This work was published posthumously, as were Opp. 70–78.

Souvenir de St. Pétersbourg unfolds in three parts. The introduction and first fast section draw on Mikhail Vielgorsky’s song Любила я твои глаза (“I loved your eyes”), also transcribed by Liszt and others. The fast section, cast in sonata form, halts suddenly after the development section, a structure reminiscent of later works such as Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1, Dvořák’s Violin Concerto, Goltermann’s cello concertos, and similar works. The second fast section is a polonaise based on Vielgorsky’s Нам сияет Аврора в солнце нужды нам нет (“Aurora shines upon us, we need not the sun”), structured as a ternary form with an extended coda. The layout of the Souvenir aligns with late Classical and early Romantic concertinos by composers such as Weber and Servais. Though more compact in form, the work is by no means technically easier.

The Souvenir exists for cello with either piano or string quintet accompaniment. The piano part is not a simple reduction of the quintet but an alternate version, with unique textures and, in places such as mm. 406–408 of the polonaise, certain harmonic notes omitted. The quintet version allows for richer interplay between the violins than is possible in the piano version.

This edition presents, for the first time in modern publication, a complete quintet score of Souvenir de St. Pétersbourg. Editorial interventions and deviations from the original sources are marked in the score or detailed in the Critical Commentary. In this edition, the cello and bass lines have been separated into distinct parts. The original fingerings and bowings have been retained in the solo part, with the editor's suggested fingerings appearing below the staff.

Special thanks to the Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Münster, Johann André, and the Free Library of Philadelphia for providing access to the sources for our review.