Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Solos for Young Cellists

The pro hired to round out the cello section for our church Easter program recommended that I check out the series "Solos for Young Cellists," and specifically the piece Julie-O, which she thought was in Volume 3. Turns out she was wrong about that, but I couldn't tell until I had the volume in my hand, because I couldn't find a listing of the Tables of Contents. (One of my pet peeves when buying sheet music on line.) With a little more digging, I found vol 1-6, but not all on the same page. Looks like it might be in Volume 5.

The cool thing about this series (so I hear) is that you can buy a CD for each volume that contains the pieces played on the cello with piano accompaniment, and also the accompaniment alone, for practice purposes. Prices vary from $9-17 for the books (buyer beware!) and about $12 for the CD, so about $25 for piano score, cello part, and CD per volume, depending on taxes and shipping for where you decide to buy.

As another public service gesture, here are the Tables of Contents of Solos for Young Cellists.

Volume 1
Simple Folk Songs (8)
Scherzo, Op. 12, No. 3-Schlemuller
Forward, March!, Op. 14, No. 6-Schlemuller
Livi's Blues-E. W. Cheney
Fairytales-Squire
Clock Tower Bells-C. Cheney
Budapesto-C. Cheney
Gondola Song-Schlemuller
Concerto in C Major, III. No. 6-Vivaldi

Volume 2
Cradle Song-Squire
Berceuse-Jarnefelt
Drei Leichte Stucke-Hindemith
Running of the Bulls-E. W. Cheney
Nina-Pergolesi
Elfintanz-Jenkinson
At Twilight-Squire
Neopolitan Dance-Marcelli

Volume 3
Romance/Debussy
Bourree/Squire
Serenade Basque/Adorian
Sicilienne/Faure
Sonata in E Minor, Op. 38, No. 1/Romberg
Sonata in E Minor, Op. 38, No. 1/Romberg/Farrar (quartet arrangement)
Fond Recollections, Op. 64, No. 1/Popper
Harlequinade/Squire
Humoresque/Squire

Volume 4
Sonata in C Major/Handel
Suite Francaise/Bazelaire
Le Basque/Marais
Orientale from Kaleidoscope, Op. 50, No. 9/Cui
Etude-Caprice, Op. 54, No. 4/Golterman

Volume 5
Salut d' Amour, op. 12 - Elgar
Pieces form the 10th, 12th and 14th Concerti - Couperin
* Prelude
* Siciliene
* La Tromba
* Plainte
* Air de Diable
Adagio & Allegro, Op. 70 - Schumann
Mazurka - Popper
Meditation - Bridge
Julie-O - Summer/Cheney

Volume 6
Song Without Words, Op. Posthumous 109 - Mendelssohn
Sonata in C Major, G. 4 - Boccherini
* Allegro
* Largo
* Allegro
Piece pour violoncelle, Op. 77 (Papillon) - Faure
Prayer from "Jewish Life" Suite No. 1 - Bloch
Eclectic Suite (Pops' Cycle) - Forsyth
* Potpourri
* Song of Light
* Ripsnorter Finale

(I haven't been able to find a listing for volumes 7 and 8, but will append them when I do. The Alfred Publishing site only lists CDs for these volumes (with no contents!), so I am surmising the sheet music may not have been published yet.)
(Update: it took a lot of digging, but I found links on Carey Cheney's web site. I'd still prefer to see them all listed on one page - so here it is!)

Volume 7
Concerto in G Major, F.III, Nr. 12 - A. Vivaldi
* Allegro
* Largo
* Allegro
*!*Divertimento - Haydn-Piatigorsky
* Adagio
* Minuet
* Allegro di molto
*!*Vocalise - V. Persichetti
Andante - C.P.E. Bach

Volume 8
*!* The Bee - F. Schubert
Tzig, Tzig! - W.H. Squire
Sonata in E Major (1st & 2nd mvmts.) - F.Francoeur
Restful Woods - A. Dvorak
*!* Capriccio - Lucas Foss

*!* denotes copyright permission is still under negotiation.
(I'm not sure what this means, since pieces from the earlier volumes also have this annotation, but they have been published and are available for purchase.)

5 comments:

cellodonna said...

Thanks for posting this. Do you happen to know if the volumes are in a progressive order of difficulty?

Sometimes if you look up a music book on Amazon it will list a table of contents.

gottagopractice said...

Yes, the difficulty is progressive in general, though of course absolute order will vary depending on your own foibles.

Amazon let me down this time. I ordered there first because as a Prime member there was no additional shipping charged. But first they only had half the volumes and fewer CDs available, then they did *not* have tables of contents, and finally, they sent two of the four volumes I ordered without cello parts, so I had to return them. I hate returns. I don't think they have enough experience handling sheet music to do it right.

the lovechild of dorothy parker and oscar wilde said...

Hello,

Thank you for writing about Solos for Young Cellists on your blog and for compiling the track listings for those volumes. Alfred Publishing has been in the process of updating the track listings on our products and will post these particular ones on our website, www.alfred.com. Volumes 7 & 8 of this series will be out later this year.

Feel free to visit the Alfred site, where you can order any product in our catalog online from our trusted dealers. If you have any further questions or there is any way we can help enhance your experience with Alfred products, please do not hesitate to contact our customer service department at customerservice@alfred.com.

Thank you for your support of Alfred Publishing!

All the best,
Marina Terteryan,
Marketing Coordinator

Carey Cheney said...

Hello - thank you for your posts about my series. I am sorry that a Table of Contents took so long to find. On many web sites selling Solos For Young Cellists, you can usually see the contents listed underneath the description of the book or CD. I am updating my own web site Cheneycellists.com to contain these lists as well.
I would like to make clear that this is NOT a series where the pieces are listed in order of difficulty. One look at Volume One will be helpful to illustrate this. The Gondola Song by Schlemuller for example is a piece laden with arpeggiated and slurred double-stops and broken chords - much more difficult than the Simple Folk Songs. I chose the pieces and the ordering of them in a general level ordering - each volume represents pieces with more challenges. FOr example, Volume 3 has a lot of neck position pieces but with no tenor clef. Volume 4 contains tenor clef.
Julie-O is an advanced level piece and the purpose of working with Mark Summer to come up with this arrangement was to have a recording and a written copy that are the same. Because Mark is a professional jazz musician, his recordings are never the same of Julie-O and that is amazing. The SOlos For Young Cellists arrangement exists to help younger but advanced cellists experience some new techniques and styles but with the help of written instructions and a recording for reference.
I hope that you will continue to use and explore music from the series. I am sorry that Alfred has chosen to temporarily suspend publication of Volumes 7 & 8. The CDs for these have been out since 2007. Please check in with me to see if this changes. I hope they will appear soon.
Thank you for your interest! Yours cellistically,
Carey Cheney

Carey Cheney said...

Hello - thank you for your posts about my series. I am sorry that a Table of Contents took so long to find. On many web sites selling Solos For Young Cellists, you can usually see the contents listed underneath the description of the book or CD. I am updating my own web site Cheneycellists.com to contain these lists as well.
I would like to make clear that this is NOT a series where the pieces are listed in order of difficulty. One look at Volume One will be helpful to illustrate this. The Gondola Song by Schlemuller for example is a piece laden with arpeggiated and slurred double-stops and broken chords - much more difficult than the Simple Folk Songs. I chose the pieces and the ordering of them in a general level ordering - each volume represents pieces with more challenges. FOr example, Volume 3 has a lot of neck position pieces but with no tenor clef. Volume 4 contains tenor clef.
Julie-O is an advanced level piece and the purpose of working with Mark Summer to come up with this arrangement was to have a recording and a written copy that are the same. Because Mark is a professional jazz musician, his recordings are never the same of Julie-O and that is amazing. The SOlos For Young Cellists arrangement exists to help younger but advanced cellists experience some new techniques and styles but with the help of written instructions and a recording for reference.
I hope that you will continue to use and explore music from the series. I am sorry that Alfred has chosen to temporarily suspend publication of Volumes 7 & 8. The CDs for these have been out since 2007. Please check in with me to see if this changes. I hope they will appear soon.
Thank you for your interest! Yours cellistically,
Carey Cheney