36 Etudes for Viola, Opus 43: Instructive and progressive: Urtext Edition

The German composer Heinrich Ernst Kayser (1815-1888) was not only a violinist, but also a pedagogue who added to the music teaching literature with various methods and etudes that work for the technical and progressive development of violin and viola players. Kayser was 55 years old in 1870 when he published the 36 Etudes for Viola, Op. 43, our primary source for this urtext version was the first edition Hamburg: Cranz, Plate A.C. 34319.Although, there are some notable and interesting facts about this viola book, it is worth noting that these are shorter etudes in terms of number of bars compared to his previous book 36 violin etudes, Op. 20, they are nevertheless precise in reinforcing the technical weaknesses of the viola student or amateur, as they have instructions written by the composer himself as to how the etudes should be performed in some cases, thus serving as a progressive exercise with different rhythms, nuances of volume and use of different bow strokes. These etudes do not keep any kind of order with the use of tonalities, they have constant melodic lines as the use of double strings are not abundant.We have modernized part of the musical spelling to offer more comfort at the moment of the study, also we have added in grey colour suggestions of the editor. Read more