Book 1 of Recital Music's ongoing Heritage Series featuring long-forgotten music primarily by bassist-composers of the late 19th and early 20th-century. Lyrical and accessible music mainly in the orchestral register providing useful and interesting recital repertoire in the salon style. Ideal as early recital repertoire. Evocative music with effective musical and technical challenges for the intermediate bassist. Contents include Laska - A la Hongroise / Noskowski - Elegy-Polonaise / Manoly - Albumblatt / Madenski - Marzenie/Souvenir / Simandl - Etude / Laska - Arietta. [Laska - A la Hongroise - Grade 6 Trinity-Guildhall 2010 onwards/ Noskowski - Elegy-Polonaise Grade 7 Trinity-Guildhall 2010 onwards]. 'This is a collection of five short pieces for recital programmes drawing on the repertoire of central European bassist-composers mainly at the turn of the 20th-century. So we have Gustav Laska's Arietta and A La Hongroise Ludwig Manoly's Albumblatt Eduard Madenski's Marzenie and Simandl's Etude as well as Zygmunt Noskowski's Elegy-Poloniase. The Simandl work which though brief deserves a better title appeared in that pedagogue's Method volume 2 but will hopefully reach a wider audience in this edition. It's a pleasure to see a proliferation of this kind of chamber recital repertoire for the bass; we can't have too much of it.' (ESTA - News & Views)
