Bartok Bela: FUER KINDER

Béla Bartók’s “For Children” is one of the best known pedagogical works for piano teachers of the twentieth century, second only perhaps to the same composer’s “Mikrokosmos”. It was based firmly on the huge number of folk songs he collected, recorded and studied with his colleague Zoltán Kodály. At the time, Bartók was offering something very new to piano teachers and their students. Siegfried Steinkogler became acquainted with “For Children” at the beginning of his guitar studies and, from them, learnt a great deal about melody and harmonisation. He has chosen 38 of the original 79 pieces to offer in arrangements for the guitar. They are presented with helpful fingerings, technical solutions and aids to familiarize the younger students with common notations. For beginners, ten of the pieces are played exclusively in the first position before a gently increasing level of difficulty helps the player broaden their skills. In these arrangements, Bartók’s ingenious teaching pieces will be as invaluable to guitarists as they have been to your pianists for over one hundred years.