Through the amiable genre of the sonatina, generations of piano pupils have slowly and cautiously approached its “big sister”, the sonata. With the aid of our three-volume selection of sonatinas from two centuries, intermediate piano pupils large and small can undertake an excursion through the development of piano music from the early 18th to the end of the 19th century. This first volume contains 26 easy to moderately difficult sonatinas from the time of the High Baroque and pre-classical periods by composers including C.P.E. and J.C.F. Bach, Handel, Georg Benda, Domenico Scarlatti and Antonio Soler. Since the term “sonatina” had quite diverse meanings at this time, the volume offers works of varied character. The simple pieces at the beginning provide a way in; then the sonatinas follow in chronological order. A table shows the most important embellishments and their correct execution according to the rules of the time. A large body of literature for piano lessons!
G. Henle Publishers stands for Urtext sheet music of the highest quality. The Urtext editions not only provide the undistorted and authoritative musical text but are also aesthetically pleasing, optimised for practical use and extremely durable. And then there is the strong, distinctive blue profile: (almost) all of the Urtext editions are bound in the characteristic blue cardboard.
Musicians trust Henle's blue Urtext editions because they:
- provide an undistorted, reliable and authoritative musical text
- offer superb, aesthetically appealing music engraving
- are optimised for practical use (page turns, fingerings)
- are of high quality and durable (cover, paper, binding)
- contain a short preface that introduces the work (particularly useful for AMEB exams) in German, English and French, as well as explanatory footnotes for particularly interesting passages in the score
- contain a description of the sources, an evaluation of the sources, readings and a documentation of the corrections made (= "Critical Report") in German and English, and often also in French
