The music in this book, selected and arranged by Howard Harrison, is appealing, sometimes truly great music, which just happens to be simple. None of the pieces is merely 'educational' (almost all of them had successful lives of their own before they found their way here), and they were all chosen for their individual, purely musical strengths. However, the book is more than just a collection of performable pieces; the pieces in it are roughly graded and very varied in their demands, so that any player who works through them will have the chance to consolidate and polish his/her technique. They are also more than usually varied in style. They will give some unexpected pleasure and signpost some interesting and enjoyable pathways that might otherwise have remained unexplored.
Contents:
- Carnaval Salteno (Trad)
- Generous Portions (Harrison)
- Minuet for Anna-Magdelena (Bach)
- Tanz des Burgermeisters (Praetorius)
- The Blue Beyond (Harrison)
- The New Policeman (Trad)
- Allegro (Mozart)
- America from West Side Story (Bernstein)
- Basse Danse (Warlock)
- Bourée from Water Music (Handel)
- Chicken (Giblin)
- Danse Arabe (Tchaikovsky)
- Gavotte from Holberg Suite (Grieg)
- Paragon Rag (Joplin)
- Peruvian Dance Tune (Trad)
- Quodlibet from Goldberg Variations (Bach)
- Seguidilla from Carmen (Bizet)
- Tambourin I & II (Aubert)
- The Wang Wang Blues (Mueller, Johnson, Busse & Woods)
- Three Moravian Folksongs (Janácek)
- Troika (Prokofieff)
- Woogie Boogie (Harrison)