Sheet music in detail

About the composition

Martin Burkhardt: Ten small pieces in the old style with increasing level of difficulty – 2 players’ scores (16 pages each)
Marin Burkhardt:
"The pianists are in a good position: there is literature for pupils by the greatest composers of the 18th. century at all levels of difficulty. The situation in violin literature is similar.
With the violoncello there is the problem that the playing position and the fingering was somewhat different from that of today. Until 1720 the fingering was analogue to that of the violin, later it was half diatonic in the first and second positions and from the third position upwards it was analogue to the violin. This can be appreciated when playing Vivaldi’s sonatas which are not very comfortable for beginners to play - when you look at the motives you always have the feeling “a finger is missing!”
Therefore I felt obliged to create pieces in the “old” style which suit the modern chromatic fingering system and assist its development.
In Nos. 1 and 2 the fingerings 1-2-4 and 1-3-4 are featured, then in No. 3 changing fingers are introduced and in No. 4 scales with slurs, and in Nos. 5 and 6 both extensions are used. Then step by step the fingerboard is opened up (2nd, 3rd and fourth positions) but just so that there are no four note groupings as in for instance Vivaldi. The style is situated between Telemann, the Bach sons and Leopold Mozart. Both parts are of equal importance. From No. 4 onwards there is sometimes a change in roles so that the pupil can practice “accompanying”.
These pieces are conceived as an accompaniment to conventional cello tutors and not as a replacement - for this they progress too fast.
In my experience children accept these pieces just like original works from the 18th. century and adults are pleased not to have to play “children’s pieces”. "