attr. Fétis/Servais - La Romanesca (For Cello and Piano)

The transcription ofLa Romanesca by the Belgian cellist-composerFrançois Servais (1807–1866) is mainly based on the version made by the violinist Pierre Baillot (1771–1842), giving the violin part to the cello and the guitar part to the piano (string quintet). Servais’sLa Romanesca has a subtitle "fameux Air de Danse de la fin du XVIme Siècle

The transcription of La Romanesca by the Belgian cellist-composer François Servais (1807–1866) is mainly based on the version made by the violinist Pierre Baillot (1771–1842), giving the violin part to the cello and the guitar part to the piano (string quintet). Servais’s La Romanesca has a subtitle "fameux Air de Danse de la fin du XVIme Siècle arrangé pour le​ Violoncelle avec accompagnement de 2 Violons, Alto, Violoncelle​ et Contrebasse avec sourdines ou Piano tel qu’il a été exécuté​ par François Servais dans ses Concerts à Vienne," however, it is more than likely that La Romanesca is a forgery made by François-Joseph Fétis (1784–1871), which was then popularized in the 1830s by Baillot. After being published by the Viennese firm E. Mollo & A.O. Witzendorf in the summer 1842, the Servais transcription was published and reprinted by several publishers.

La Romanesca is a post-Rameau gavotte and does not display a sixteenth-century style. The section in B major seems to be by Servais. Because of the popularity of La Romanesca, the cello transcription likely inspired David Popper's famous, D-major Gavotte and Gaspar Cassadó's Pastorale, which he tried to pass off as François Couperin's work.

According to the Servais scholar Peter François, the first known performance took place in Warsaw on 14 January 1842. Servais had success playing the transcription during his 1842 tour in Poland and Austria. On 28 March 1842, he performed it at the debut concert of the Vienna Philharmonic.