Früher Anfang auf dem Cello 4

Please note our English language edition of this volume BA 8999.

Volume 4, prepared by cello specialist Michael Corssen, is devoted almost exclusively to playing in positions. Positions 2, 3 and 4 are introduced and trained using familiar songs and delightful short recital pieces, some of them specially written for the volume by Bertold Hummel. Changes of position are first marked with a sign in the music so that they can be explicitly practiced. The volume provides varied suggestions for this purpose, encouraging learners to approach this technical challenge from different angles and to practice with imagination. The tutor is rounded off with an excursion into positions 5 and 6. Volume 4 also introduces the tenor clef and explains how to produce harmonics.

By now learners have reached a level of achievement that allows them to venture into the 'genuine' cello literature, partially while studying Volume 4. Additional material can be found, for example, in Sebastian Lee's “Forty Easy Etudes”, op. 70 (BA 9401), and David Popper's “Fifteen Easy Melodic-Harmonic Etudes”, op. 76, no. 1 (BA 6979). After this, the collection “Concert Pieces for Cello and Piano” (BA 9695) and the series “Bärenreiter's Concert Pieces”, likewise edited by Christoph Sassmannshaus, contain many musically rewarding pieces that form a bridge to the standard repertoire of the cello.