Double bassist Norbert Duka was born in Zirc, Hungary in 1941 and studied at the Liszt Academy in Budapest under Zoltán Tibay. He continued his studies with Rainer Zepperitz at the College of Music in Berlin. He settled in Germany, where for many years he was a double bassist at Deutsche Oper Berlin. Alongside performing and recording, he considers it his duty to make transcriptions to broaden the repertoire of the double bass.

This publication is a transcription of one of Beethoven's early cello sonatas (1796) in two movements preceded by a slow introduction. Beethoven himself was able to hear this work on the double bass, played by the famous contemporary virtuoso contrabassist Domenico Dragonetti, and it was partly thanks to this that the composer discovered the hitherto unexploited possibilities latent in the instrument.