Grützmacher: Etudes and Salon Pieces

Ten years after the recording of the first volume of what was to become the "etude project" in 2003, this was what I thought to be the final single CD in the series. By then, it was 168 studies on CD, and I am sometimes thinking that there must be different ways to spend the fourth decade of one's life ... Little did I know that more was to come. However, Grützmacher proved to be a competent composer when I started looking for music for cello and piano to add to this CD, and the Fantaisie Hongroise, Op. 7, is a very welcome addition to the concert repertoire and also a nice alternative to Popper's Hungarian Rhapsody, Op. 68, which was written much later.

Erich Pintar, my dear friend and dream producer, must have be as happy as I am that this big project seemed to be complete at the time, and I hope that many young cellists who have to study these pieces rather than choose to play them for fun can see what I have tried to prove: etudes written by great musicians or instrumentalists (who are not always necessarily great composers too) are still valid pieces of music and not only for torture ...