Grade 3-4-A series available as violin duets or violin & piano.Whether a student or a great artist the desire to make a beautiful sound is a constant in the life of any musician. Sound is the musician's voice the means of communicating an artistic vision to the audience and it should be the aim for children of any age or standard to be engaged in good tone production.The inspiration for writing these pieces came to me from the wish to give the young children I teach music which would develop their ear for both good intonation and beautiful tone production. All the pieces have a strongly implied harmonic structure allowing them to be played without accompaniment. Thepurpose of the second violin part is therefore to enable the teacher to underline the harmony as well as to influence the student's tone production and intonation through his own sound as much can be taught by good example. This music is also available for violin and piano with piano accompaniments written by Heidi Rolfe.Finally I think that children enjoy the challenge of expressing different moods and emotions musically and I hope that the range of ideas implied by the keys and the titles of these pieces will fire their imagination.Nigel Goldberg.

Born into a family that had lived in Florence since the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895-1968) entertained only a distant relationship with the music he heard at synagogue: a Renaissance church held more appeal for the Florentine artist than the Oriental décor of his forefathers’ place of worship. It was only when he discovered Schelemo a rhapsody for cello and orchestra written in 1916 by Ernest Bloch that he began to understand what “Jewish music” could be. It would take until the death of his maternal grandfather and the discovery of a collection of prayers set to music among his papers for the youngCastelnuovo-Tedesco to begin to explore Jewish music. In 1928 two years after publishing the Dances of King David he wrote this Vocalise-Étude for medium voice and piano at the request of vocal teacher Amédée-Landély Hettich who wanted to include it in the Répertoire moderne de Vocalises-Études published by Leduc. The piece became so popular that it led to several adaptations and the composer asked his close friend Gioacchino Maglioni (1891-1966) to transcribe it for violin and piano. Divided into three sections the work opens with a poignant lamento that grieves the tragic fate of the Jewish people. Countering what he felt to be a tendency of Jewish music to transform into a “Wailing Wall” Castelnuovo-Tedesco follows the lamento with a folk dance whose brisk “lively and stubborn” movement has great panache. The third section returns to the initial poignant theme before briefly reiterating the dance motif allowing the piece to conclude on a hopeful note.

for Violin and Piano. Hatikvah (The Hope) is a 19th-century Jewish poem and modern-day national anthem of Israel. In this romantic-style arrangement, Ben Andrew shares the melody between both the violin and piano. Through the use of subtle dissonance and a rich harmonic texture, the music conveys a sense of struggle, despair and sadness, as well as the eternal hope expressed in the original poem upon which the music is based. Perform this piece in your ABRSM Violin Grade 8, or Trinity College London Violin Grade 7 exams.

Six sonatinas by Georg Philipp Telemann varying in character. The set includes a part for continuo should the violinist wish to include this in the performance.