Ensemble school for beginners

The violin teacher Eva-Maria Neumann, known for her violin school and her book about her escape from the GDR, presents us with a palette of 20 string quartets that offer young people a gradual introduction to chamber music playing. Beginning with slow, homophonic pieces, she progresses to vocal, dance-like and more complicated arrangements of piano and orchestral pieces. All the important baroque, classical, romantic and modern composers are included. A few popular tunes stand out, three sharps to three flats, major and minor are represented, fingerings and bowings are sparingly used in the parts.

The valuable thing about this collection: In the preface to volume 1, the editor explains in detail what is important when playing together, and at the end of the prefaces to volumes 1 and 2 she suggests further string quartet literature. The appendices contain notes on the history and style of each piece. The parts contain individual tips on performance - all in German and English. Neumann's four original compositions flourish with imagination and joy of playing. The Happy Birthday Variations after Encina and the adaptations after Vivaldi, Bach, Mozart, Chopin, Paganini, film music and Bartók deserve special mention. Many pieces are sure to find favor as encores!

Eva-Maria Neumann: Fo(u)r Strings. 20 easy to moderately difficult pieces from four centuries for string quartet, score, five parts (optional violin 3 instead of viola), booklet 1: DV 31105; booklet 2: DV 31106; € 34.90 each, Breitkopf & Härtel, Wiesbaden