A really good introduction to contemporary music. Musical and technical demands needed are a rigorous sense of pulse and rhythm, good sense of fingerboard and shifting, precision in execution and varying bowing techniques.
The well known Minuet from the Anna Madgalena Notebook gives lots of practice playing up a D major scale using 1st and 3rd positions. It also provides opportunities to develop the Minuet down-up-up bowing and other simple bowing patterns within a 3/4 time signature.
Lovely song-like piece with gentle shifts into 4th position and using the A harmonic. Good for bow distribution and lyrical phrasing. Uses all four strings of the cello.
A piece with a good jazz feel, swung quavers and languid phrasing. There is lots of shifting, chromatic movement and some thumb position. There are pizzicato chords and double stops. It merits work with the piano for ensemble.
This suite is in three movements, Chaconne, Intermezzo and March. It is an arrangement of Holst’s first suite for military band. On one occasion the first part goes up to 8th position and there is quite a bit of 5th position. Running passages get passed between the parts, there are semiquaver passages involving string crossing, double stops and many contrasting articulations to watch our for.
