Vivaldi: Summer from the Four Seasons, Op. 8 No. 2 (RV315) Score: 31 pages, Duration: ca 10:00, 3 movements

I. Allegro non molto
LANGUISHING IN THE HEAT
Man and beast wilt in the burning sun; even the evergreens feel the heat.
THE CUCKOO
The Cuckoo sings loudly.
THE DOVE
And the songs of the turtledove and goldfinch are ardent.
THE GOLDFINCH
The gentle breezes sigh.
CHANGING WINDS.
but the north wind sudddenly
appears and strats to quarrel.
THE NORTH WIND
A frightened shephered weeps in fear and bemoans his fate.

II. Adagio
The fierce lightning and terrible thunder makes the shepherd unable to rest his weary body.
BLUE-BOTTLE FLIES

III. Presto
TEMPESTUOUS SUMMERTIME
The shepherd is right to be afraid. The sky flashes and the thunder is awesome.
Grain and fruit are destroyed by the storm.

This arrangement was modified in its edition and violin indications. A very clean piano part was written. Very good edition of the entire score.

The Méditation is an instrumental entr'acte performed between the scenes of Act II in the opera Thaïs. In the first scene of Act II, Athanaël, a Cenobite monk, confronts Thaïs, a beautiful and hedonistic courtesan and devotée of Venus, and attempts to persuade her to leave her life of luxury and pleasure and find salvation through God. It is during a time of reflection following the encounter that the Méditation is played by the orchestra. In the second scene of Act II, following the Méditation, Thaïs tells Athanaël that she will follow him to the desert.

The piece is in D major and is approximately five minutes long (although there are a number of interpretations that stretch the piece to over six minutes). Massenet may also have written the piece with religious intentions; the tempo marking is Andante religioso, signifying his intention that it should be played religiously (which could mean either strictly in the tempo or literally with religiously-founded emotion) and at walking tempo, or around 60 BPM. The piece opens with a short introduction, with the solo violin quickly entering with the motif. After the violin plays the melody twice, the piece goes into a section marked animato, gradually becoming more and more passionate (Massenet wrote poco a poco appassionato). The climax is reached at a place marked poco piu appassionato (a little more passion) and is then followed by a short cadenza-like passage from the soloist and returns to the main theme. After the theme is played twice, the soloist joins the piano while playing harmonics on the upper register as the piano quietly play below the solo line.

A brilliant pianist, Watkins is loved by instrumentalists for the sheer quality of his writing. ".Coruscation and Reflection". is already widely performed as welcome repertoire in their genres.

Edward Elgar composed his Variations on an Original Theme, Op. 36, popularly known as the Enigma Variations, between October 1898 and February 1899. It is an orchestral work comprising fourteen variations on an original theme.

Elgar dedicated the work "to my friends pictured within", each variation being a musical sketch of one of his circle of close acquaintances (see musical cryptogram). Those portrayed include Elgar's wife Alice, his friend and publisher Augustus J. Jaeger and Elgar himself.

In naming his theme "Enigma" Elgar posed a challenge which has generated much speculation but has never been conclusively answered. The Enigma is widely believed to involve a hidden melody.

The name of the variation IX (NIMROD) refers to Augustus J. Jaeger, who was employed as music editor by the London publisher Novello & Co. He was a close friend of Elgar's, giving him useful advice but also severe criticism, something Elgar greatly appreciated. Elgar later related how Jaeger had encouraged him as an artist and had stimulated him to continue composing despite setbacks. Nimrod is described in the Old Testament as "a mighty hunter before the Lord", Jäger being German for hunter.

In 1904 Elgar told Dora Penny ("Dorabella") that this variation is not really a portrait, but "the story of something that happened". Once, when Elgar had been very depressed and was about to give it all up and write no more music, Jaeger had visited him and encouraged him to continue composing. He referred to Ludwig van Beethoven, who had a lot of worries, but wrote more and more beautiful music. "And that is what you must do", Jaeger said, and he sang the theme of the second movement of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 8 Pathétique. Elgar disclosed to Dora that the opening bars of "Nimrod" were made to suggest that theme. "Can't you hear it at the beginning? Only a hint, not a quotation."

This variation has become popular in its own right and is sometimes used at British funerals, memorial services, and other solemn occasions. It is always played at the Cenotaph, Whitehall in London at the National Service of Remembrance. A version was also played during the Hong Kong handover ceremony in 1997 and at the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games. The ?Nimrod? variation was the final orchestral composition (before the national anthem) played by the Greek National Orchestra in a televised June 2013 concert, before the 75-year-old Athenian ensemble was dissolved in the wake of severe government cutbacks.

An adaptation of the piece appears at the ending of the 2017 film Dunkirk as part of the score

The Romantic Era Song Album (Book 1). The Most Famous Romantic Songs. Arrangement for Violin and Piano. With Full Score and Individual Parts. Enjoy it!

Song List:
Beethoven - Moonlight Sonata
Schumann - Träumerei
Saint-Saens - Le Cygne
Massenet - Meditation
Elgar - Pomp and Circumstance

For Tutorials, Play Alongs or request New Arrangements, visit the YouTube Channel: Sheet Music To Play

Pachelbel - Canon in D
Violin and piano version, 3 pages, with chords.

For the Easy Concert Pieces series, the experienced piano teacher Monika Twelsiek compiled pleasant, easy piano pieces for beginners and published them in three volumes in progressive order.

The three volumes are intended to complement a piano tutorial method and are particularly suitable for performance at auditions at music schools, for examinations and for competitions. They offer varied repertoire in a broad selection of pieces from the Baroque, Classical, Romantic and Modern eras.

Volume 1 (ED 22547) can already be used by beginners, containing pieces in the five-note range and easy pieces spanning a single octave. Other criteria for selection are simple rhythms and very easy chords. Crossing the thumb underneath, playing several parts together and pedal use are not yet required.

Volume 2 (ED 22548) contains pieces with an extended range of two octaves. Crossing the thumb under, pedal use, simple polyphony and three- or four-part chords all feature here, as do simple ornaments, cantabile playing and differentiating between melody and accompaniment.

Volume 3 (ED 22549) is aimed at advanced players who wish to refine their expression and personal interpretation. The pieces demand a great deal of dexterity, a high sense of rhythm, articulation and phrasing, polyphonic playing (polyphony even in one hand) and tonal differentiation of the piano setting.

These two movements were originally intended for Kleine Suite for violin and piano (ED 7564), but were exchanged for the 'official' second movement published in the suite. Over the course of the reviewing of Zimmermann's early work, many surprising things have come to light again. These two alternative movements are not difficult to play, can be used for many different purposes and expand the repertoire by two unknown pieces by Zimmermann.

The Concerto for Oboe and Strings in D minor, attributed to Alessandro Marcello, is one of the most performed oboe concertos in the repertory. It was written in the early 18th century and has become Marcello's most famous work. Bach wrote a keyboard transcription of the concerto.

The Oboe Concerto in D minor, S D935, is an early 18th-century concerto for oboe, strings and continuo attributed to the Venetian composer Alessandro Marcello. The earliest extant manuscript containing Johann Sebastian Bach's solo keyboard arrangement of the concerto, BWV 974, dates from around 1715. As a concerto for oboe, strings and continuo its oldest extant sources date from 1717: that year it was printed in Amsterdam, and a C minor variant of the concerto, S Z799, was written down.

Bach's keyboard version was published as an arrangement of a concerto by Antonio Vivaldi in the 19th century. In 1923 the C minor version of the oboe concerto was published as a composition by Benedetto Marcello, Alessandro's brother. In the second half of the 20th century several publications indicated Alessandro again as the composer of the piece, as it had been in its early 18th-century print, and the oboe concerto was again published in its D minor version.