SKU: ST.1122

ISBN 9790220203589.

Duets are always popular, and these seventeen, written for small pianists, are very easy but nevertheless entertaining both to hear and to play.

Adam Carse (1878-1958) was a master of composition and arranging for a number of instruments for young people and A Little Concert is an ideal entre into this oeuvre.

The use of French is not without reason since titles include 'Do Do, L'enfant Do!', 'Les Cloches', and 'Dans les Gardes Francaises'. Among the other works are 'Folk Song', 'Toy Soldiers', 'Doll's Waltz' and 'Over the Water'. The boy depicted on the cover is inviting the animals to the concert since 'Little Bo-Peep', (the tenth work in the volume), has evidently lost her sheep!

SKU: HL.14030351

ISBN 9780853605485. UPC: 884088434175. 8.5x11.75 inches.

Commissioned by Richard Deering with funds provided by the Arts Council of Great Britain and first performed by him in October 1982 in Amsterdam. The title is the same as the Schoenberg ones of 1911 and like those pieces my title is something of an understatement. They are not musically or technically undemanding as the title may perhaps suggest. In my case these pieces were in a sense sketches for my larger scale Piano Sonata of the following year. Each piece has its own essential character, but all of them are linked in the use of common pitch material. There is more than a hint of parody in the mood of the music.

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: FG.55011-517-0

ISBN 9790550115170.

Kalevi Aho's Piano Sonata No. 2 Hommage a Beethoven (2016) is a tribute to that great giant of the piano sonata, Beethoven. The very opening bars already allude to the older master's most mammoth sonata, the Hammerklavier, op. 106. In many places, Aho has spread the texture over three staves in his search for a mighty sound. The third movement is in the nature of a scherzo, drawing on musical material from the second movement of the Hammerklavier. There are no allusions to Beethoven in the fourth movement, but its texture, with bells, is somehow evocative of Mussorgsky's Great Gate of Kiev. The last movement gathers the sonata's motifs together again until, little by little, they disperse and chirruping birdsong leads the sonata to an enigmatic conclusion. The sonata is dedicated to Sonja Fraki, who premiered the work at Mantta Music Festival in August 2018.