Cello, it’s me.
I was wondering if after all these centuries
You’d like to meet.

Corny jokes aside, this meeting of Adele‘s “Hello” and Mozart‘s “Lacrimosa” is actually quite gorgeous. Made up of 100 acoustic and electric cellos, it is “a musical experiment bridging 18th century spiritualism and 21st century secularism,” though the two pieces might have more in common than you think.

Coming to us from The Piano Guys, the song has no pianos in it, but it does have an arrangement by Al van der Beek and Steven Sharp Nelson (that’s Nelson on those cellos). They affectionately refer to their hybrid song as “Chello” or “Hellocrimosa.” So why these two musical numbers exactly? I’ll let them explain:

“One wallows in a wide, painstakingly minor 12/8 time and the other drives a poignant bi-polar major/minor common time. One draws its power from the fullness of a grand chorus and orchestra, the other from the isolation of a lone voice and piano. One conforms to age-old counterpart canon and musical theory, while the other is conveyed via verse/chorus pop song parlance. However, they share the same fundamental feeling — “Lacrimosa” (meaning “weeping” or “tearful”) mournfully bemoans spiritual death, while “Hello” gripes about relationship regrets. Different centuries. Different realms. Same emotion.”

Well that’s a very beautiful explanation, and the end result certainly works on an emotional level. Not to mention the video itself is quite entertaining and well-done all on its own.

You might not recognize “Lacrimosa” by name, but you have most certainly heard it before.

This is one of the more understated, but more enchanting, adaptations of Adele’s hit song. I wonder if three hundred years from now someone will be using her music the way they used Mozart’s here.

What Adele song do you think will withstand the test of time best? Tell us in the comments below.

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Image: The Piano Guys/YouTube