kleine Stücke für Klavier-This collection of fourteen pieces together entitled Puppets plays an exceptional role in the catalogue of early works by Bohuslav Martinu (1890-1959) namely in that it represents the first works by Martinu which transcended his initial attempts at composition and quickly found a publisher.Thanks to their lasting popularity particularly with young pianists they were ultimately published in numerous editions. (The way the pieces are numbered which the composer verifiably accepted however does not correspond to their actual chronological order - they were in fact written in reverse order so that Puppets III came first whilePuppets I is the latest in the series.)All three books of Puppets which emerged between the years 1912 and 1925 and despite their title differ from one another in their aesthetic approaches and progressive maturity are published by EditioBärenreiter in new revised urtext editions edited by Ales Brezina. This urtext edition with its relatively comprehensive preface describing the circumstances surrounding the advent of the work is supported by the latest research and an assessment of all known and accessible sources which the editor presents and clarifies in detail in his critical commentary to the second and third books of Puppets.The second book (Puppets II) is dated 1918 and contains the following works: Puppet Theatre Harlequin Colombine Remembers The Sick Puppet and Colombine Sings. Thanks to its witty musical ideas and the composer's empathy for children and their intellectual world Puppets has since its first edition always been highly popular among performers.
