Schmitz - Serenades for Six Hands - Piano 6-Hands

The title says it all: In “Serenades for Six Hands“, Manfred Schmitz has collected compositions for six pianists making music together at one piano. The author has written his compositions for children to introduce them at this early stage of piano lessons to making music with other young musicians: they learn to be considerate of other players and to integrate themselves into a group.

Manfred Schmitz’s short compositions have melodies which paint a picture, as well as a character that makes them stick in your head, despite being simple in their triad structure. All of the pieces lie somewhere on the spectrum between entertainment music and art music and offer metric-rhythmical training, as they are set up as types of dance music. At some point in each piece, every player takes over the melody as well as the accompaniment. In this way, every child is challenged and learns to play under the melody line as well.

The titles of the pieces comply with a child’s perception and are interpreted with funny illustrations by Peter Muzeniek. Though the pictures, the children ‘travel on holiday’, ‘swing amongst the butterflies in the garden in summer’, watch the ‘the sunflowers smile’ and play ‘in the playground’ or go to a ‘children’s fair’ in every song.

This is a successful collection which broadens children’s repertoire, especially for the youngest children’s first music lessons at a music school.