In the late 1850s, when Rossini was composing only for his own private pleasure, he wrote a little elegy for double bass and piano that he entitled une larme (a tear). Its theme also served as the basis for a larger-scale set of variations for cello and piano. The importance that Rossini ascribed to this short piece for double bass is demonstrated not least by the fact that he made a richly ornamented dedication copy of it in 1858. This hitherto little-known source is in Russia and has now been consulted for the first-ever time for a critical Urtext edition. As in Henle's other Urtext editions for this instrument, the double bass specialist Tobias Glöckler has prepared a version in solo tuning and orchestral tuning and added fingerings and bowings to the solo part.
