Par GERSHWIN GEORGE. Jascha Heifetz (1901-1987) and George Gershwin (1898-1937), two of the best known figures in American music, were good friends and often played together. Heifetz had urged Gershwin to write a violin concerto for him, but unfortunately Gershwin died before the project got off the ground. These transcriptions by Heifetz are the next best thing. The five excerpts from Porgy and B…

These 11 well-known pieces composed especially for Violin make an ideal introduction to playing more advanced solos. Each piece reveals something about the Violin's capabilities as a solo instrument and there are selected background notes about some of the music featured, plus pictures and a brief introduction to the Violin's history and development. - an ideal book for any aspiring Violin soloist…

Par ADES THOMAS. Thomas Adès’s second work for string quartet, The Four Quarters was written for the Emerson Quartet and was premiered by them at Carnegie Hall in 2011. The winner of the 2012 British Composer Award for Chamber Composition, the 20-minute work charts the progress of a day. Glassy harmonics typify the opening movement Nightfalls, whilst playful pizzicati abound in Serenade – Morning …

Béla Bartók composed his 44 Violin Duos in 1931, at the urging of the German violin pedagogue Erich Doflein. With two exceptions, all the pieces are based on original folk music themes, most of which the composer himself collected in the course of his numerous collecting trips to the Carpathian Basin and in Algeria. Although conceived as parts of a pedagogically motivated set, these little pieces …