Béla Bartók's series of piano pieces For Children, based on folk melodies, was written around the end of the first decade of the 20th century. The pieces were published shortly afterwards by the Hungarian publisher Károly Rozsnyai. That first publication was in four volumes, the first two containing a total of 42 pieces based on Hungarian folk tunes, the third and fourth containing 43 pieces based on Slovakian folk tunes.In 1943, whilst in the United States, Bartók prepared a revised version of the collection for the publishers Boosey and Hawkes. The revisions were minimal: two Hungarian and four Slovakian songs were eliminated, there were a few minor alterations incorporating new ideas, some of the pieces previously written with accidentals had key signatures added, a few pieces were rewritten with changed meters - some fingerings were added or changed.The composer prepared the revised 1943 edition by using copies of the first edition on which he marked minor changes - where the changes were more extensive, fresh manuscript was written and a new version engraved. However, much of the engraving of the first edition was preserved in the 1943 edition. Publication took place in 1946, after the composer's death - it is not known if he saw final proofs prior to printing.The revised edition was published in two volumes, which now have been published together as one volume for the first time. / Piano
SKU: HL.48023890
ISBN 9781495077722. UPC: 888680640101. 9.0x12.0x0.223 inches.
Books 1 and 2 have been combined, making this a great value for piano teachers and students. Authorized revised edition.
SKU: HL.49045014
ISBN 9790001202114. 9.0x12.0 inches.
The Belgian composer Nicholas Lens presents extremely varied etudes, exercises and simple phrases with wonderfully telling titles from poetry and everyday world for children and adults. For the most part the studies are tonal and simple and have no constructed line. They are not based on any educational concept but leave the musical dramatization to the pupils and teachers: 'Notes and rhythms are just notes and rhythms, they do not have that many rules, they do not have any pretension, they are just tools for you to use to express what you want to share'.
SKU: HL.48025403
UPC: 196288201533.
Singing Sherlock is the acclaimed, practical and easy-to-use resource for classroom teachers, specialist music teachers, and children's choir directors. Each volume is packed full of enjoyable songs and fun vocal activities designed to equip and enable children to sing to their full potential, and is presented in clear, progressive steps, with invaluable teaching notes suitable for teachers of all musical abilities. Demonstration and backing audio tracks are available online for teaching and performance. Ideal for use in delivering the Department of Education Music Programmes of Study: key stages 1 and 2. Written by highly experienced and successful singing teachers, Singing Sherlock provides tried and tested resources to bring your singing sessions to life. Book 2 is now available in a refreshed and repackaged edition with updated text and newly engraved music.
SKU: M7.VHR-3670
ISBN 9783864341472. German.
The series 'Unterwegs mit der Querflöte' (Out and About With the Flute) is for children from the age of 5 learning to play the flute in one-to-one lessons or in pairs. The main aim has been to keep the book as concise as possible and to leave out any information which doesn't directly concern the pupil. The key features: - Simple explanations - easy for children from the age of 5 to follow - Four icons show what to do - without any fancy words - Playing duets and from memory right from the start - for holistic music-making - Ample additional material - numerous pieces, piano accompaniments and exercises together with the complete teacher's book and a parent's supplement are available online free of charge at: www.holzschuh-verlag.de/unterwegs Volume 1 - Draußen im Grünen (Out in the Country) looks at playing in the five-note range f' - c^2 and reinforces what has been learnt with additional exercises and puzzles in a motivating but not overloaded approach. With the help of four icons, each child immediately knows what is to be done at which point in the book and can also work independently. This flute tutor thus has no need for lengthy explanations and reams of information and the pupil will only find what is really meant to be for him.
SKU: HL.50489495
ISBN 9790080084182. Bach (23 x 30,2 cm) inches. Hungarian, English, German.
This publication is a completely revised edition of our five-volume guitar tutor. In the decades since the first edition, the musical interests of our students and their practice possibilities have changed. To adapt to this, we have partly expanded and partly reduced the musical and technical material of the tutor. We have increased the number of recital pieces at all levels of difficulty, so that our students can spend longer on a varied repertoire at their respective level. We have first of all selected works from the Viennese classics for this purpose but have also enriched the repertoire of the tutor with numerous pieces from the Renaissance and Baroque periods. In volumes I and II of the tutor we have given Hungarian folk songs and children's songs a significant amount of space. In the course of revision, we have expanded the material of these two volumes with simple arrangements of folk songs, nursery rhymes and flower songs, and we have provided very easy, but valuable material for instrumental study in particular for children aged between 6 and 10. We have also expanded the chamber music material to be found at the end of the volumes, because we believe that playing music together is the best way to make instrumental study a lasting experience for our students. The parts are relatively simple, sothe works provide a musical experience almost immediately.
SKU: HL.50511918
ISBN 9790080302064. Bach (23 x 30,2 cm) inches. Japanese. Bela Bartok.
The series For Children (together with Mikrokosmos) belongs undoubtedly to the basic works of piano instuction. It is learned from almost all over the world, its sheet music edition is sold by Boosey & Hawkes and EMB in territorial distribution. The present edition was prepared by the composer's son Peter Bartok living in the United States who used all available manuscripts and other documents which helped clarify the uncertainties concerning the music text. In order to meet this objective, a completely new engraving was made and the editor described the historical background of the emergence and the editions of the work as well as the nature of the corrections. The two volumes based on Hungarian folksongs appear now contracted to one volume with Hungarian and German titles, folksong texts and explanatory notes. Territorial restrictions may apply. Please ask before ordering. (Hungaroton HCD 12304).
SKU: HL.49045639
ISBN 9781540004796. UPC: 888680710774. 9.5x12.0x0.37 inches.
Chaconne (2016), for string quartet, was commissioned by the Daedalus Quartet to celebrate its 15th anniversary. The commission was supported by New Music USA, made possible by annual program support and/or endowment gifts from Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Helen F. Whitaker Fund, and Aaron Copland Fund for Music.My music has a substantial history with Daedalus. I composed the Third String Quartet (2008) for them, and subsequently they performed my three string quartets on several occasions and recorded them brilliantly on Bridge Records (Bridge 9352: Music of Fred Lerdahl, vol. 3). Chaconne is in one movement lasting 19 minutes. It is effectively my fourth string quartet. Quartets 1-3 form a unified cycle lasting 70 minutes. When I finished the cycle, I thought I would never write again for the medium; yet I could not resist the opportunity of working again with Daedalus. The issue was how to compose another string quartet unrelated to the earlier cycle. The solution came from my solo cello piece There and Back Again (2010), which was based on a four-bar variation pattern from a 17th-century chaconne. Unlike the asymmetrical phrases and expanding variations of much of my music, the chaconne form requires symmetrical phrases and strictly periodic variations. I wished to work again with these symmetries but on a larger scale. Chaconne also differs in character and expression from the three-quartet cycle. The cycle is inward and intense, a kind of psychological excavation. Chaconne is, for the most part, transparent and playful. Many of its textures emerge from little canons, not completely unlike the rounds that children sing. Any composer who writes in chaconne form (one thinks above all of the last movement of Bach's D minor violin partita and the finale of Brahms's Fourth Symphony) is confronted with the challenge of how to create a larger form out of a constantly repeating pattern.My Chaconne grows from paired antecedent-consequent phrases, each variation lasting eight bars. The 50 variations group into three large rotations, forming three arcs of tension and relaxation, with subtle parallel connections across the rotations. Notwithstanding my attraction to chaconne form, I purposefully disguised its symmetries and periodicities in order to build an overall dramatic shape. Fred Lerdahl.
SKU: BT.EMBZ20084
English-Hungarian.
Bartók's Mikrokosmos has been one of the milestones in pedagogical piano repertoire for 80 years - and yet it is also far more than a classical piano primer. These 153 piano pieces, organized in ascending order of difficulty, engage not only with technical aspects of piano playing but also with the fundamentals of composition - from Imitation and Inversion, Ostinato, and Free Variations, concerning compositional technique, to mood pieces and pieces with programmatic ideas such as Notturno, Boating, From the Diary of a Fly, or the famous Six Dances in Bulgarian Rhythm. Mikrokosmos first appeared in 1940 in six volumes. Based on volume 40 of the Bartók CompleteEdition published in 2020(Z. 15040), the present Urtext edition offers the series gathered in three volumes. This edition includes Bartók's preface, exercises, and notes written for the first edition. Furthermore, it also features a preface and comments by the editor, which not only discuss the genesis and the compositional sources but also provide performers, teachers and pupils alike, with authentic and detailed information about Bartók's notation and the specific performing problems of Mikrokosmos.
SKU: HL.49045690
For decades, pupils (aged 6+) have been learning the basics of piano playing with plenty of imagination and creativity by using the popular three-volume piano method Piano Kids by Hans-Gunter Heumann. In 2014 the method was revised and has since been published in a revised and expanded new edition: New songs and illustrations breathe new life into the standard work and adjust it to the realityof life of today's first-time piano players. The educational concept of Piano Kids, resulting from the combination of textbooks, additional activity books as well as the large number of themed tune books, is now completed by tune books that are companions to the textbooks.These new tune books contain a wide range of very easy pieces for beginners which are in line with the progress of the textbooks andprovide the young pianists with age-appropriate playing literature from the very first piano lesson. Well-known folklore melodies, upbeat compositions in the style of pop, rock and jazz music as well as the first little masterpieces by Mozart, Beethoven & Co. motivate and stimulate the pupils and add variety to the music lessons. Volume 1 starts with several pieces for piano duet which will easily motivate beginners without demanding too much. All pieces are limited to the five-note range while nevertheless covering the whole spectrum of styles: from folk melodies via classical pieces by composers such as Gurlitt, Turk or Bartok to modern compositions from the areas of pop, rock and jazz music. Alongside Vol. 2 of the piano method, Volume 2 extends the pitch range and heightens the rhythmic demands. Apart from the wide rangeof songs from the areas of folk, rock and pop music, the young musicians get to know the first easy piano pieces by Mozart, Beethoven & Co. Many little 'treats' will have a lasting motivating effect on the pianists, like e.g. the Baby Elephant Walk by Henri Mancini or The Entertainer by Scott Joplin. These pieces have been arranged by Hans-Gunter Heumann in such a way that they do not demand too much of the children but motivate them when playing these famous melodies.
SKU: PR.31241902S
UPC: 680160690589. English.
Commissioned by the San Francisco Choral Society and the Piedmont East Bay Children’s Choir, Terra Nostra is a 70-minute oratorio on the relationship between our planet and humankind, how this relationship has shifted over time, and how we can re-establish a harmonious balance. Part I: Creation of the World explores various creation myths from different cultures, culminating in a joyous celebration of the beauty of our planet. Part II: The Rise of Humanity examines human achievements, particularly since the dawn of our Industrial Age, and how these achievements have impacted the planet. Part III: Searching for Balance questions how to create more awareness for our planet’s plight, re-establish a deeper connection to it, and find a balance for living within our planet’s resources. In addition to the complete oratorio, stand-alone movements for mixed chorus, and for solo voice with piano, are also available separately.Terra Nostra focuses on the relationship between our planet and mankind, how this relationship has shifted over time, and how we can re-establish a harmonious balance. The oratorio is divided into three parts:Part I: Creation of the World celebrates the birth and beauty of our planet. The oratorio begins with creation myths from India, North America, and Egypt that are integrated into the opening lines of Genesis from the Old Testament. The music surges forth from these creation stories into “God’s World” by Edna St. Vincent Millay, which describes the world in exuberant and vivid detail. Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “On thine own child” praises Mother Earth for her role bringing forth all life, while Walt Whitman sings a love song to the planet in “Smile O voluptuous cool-breathed earth!” Part I ends with “A Blade of Grass” in which Whitman muses how our planet has been spinning in the heavens for a very long time.Part II: The Rise of Humanity examines the achievements of mankind, particularly since the dawn of the Industrial Age. Lord Alfred Tennyson’s “Locksley Hall” sets an auspicious tone that mankind is on the verge of great discoveries. This is followed in short order by Charles Mackay’s “Railways 1846,” William Ernest Henley’s “A Song of Speed,” and John Gillespie Magee, Jr.’s “High Flight,” each of which celebrates a new milestone in technological achievement. In “Binsey Poplars,” Gerard Manley Hopkins takes note of the effect that these advances are having on the planet, with trees being brought down and landscapes forever changed. Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “A Dirge” concludes Part II with a warning that the planet is beginning to sound a grave alarm.Part III: Searching for Balance questions how we can create more awareness for our planet’s plight, re-establish a deeper connection to it, and find a balance for living within our planet’s resources. Three texts continue the earth’s plea that ended the previous section: Lord Byron’s “Darkness” speaks of a natural disaster (a volcano) that has blotted out the sun from humanity and the panic that ensues; contemporary poet Esther Iverem’s “Earth Screaming” gives voice to the modern issues of our changing climate; and William Wordsworth’s “The World Is Too Much With Us” warns us that we are almost out of time to change our course. Contemporary/agrarian poet Wendell Berry’s “The Want of Peace” speaks to us at the climax of the oratorio, reminding us that we can find harmony with the planet if we choose to live more simply, and to recall that we ourselves came from the earth. Two Walt Whitman texts (“A Child said, What is the grass?” and “There was a child went forth every day”) echo Berry’s thoughts, reminding us that we are of the earth, as is everything that we see on our planet. The oratorio concludes with a reprise of Whitman’s “A Blade of Grass” from Part I, this time interspersed with an additional Whitman text that sublimely states, “I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love…”My hope in writing this oratorio is to invite audience members to consider how we interact with our planet, and what we can each personally do to keep the planet going for future generations. We are the only stewards Earth has; what can we each do to leave her in better shape than we found her?
