This morning I spent a small fortune on new music. I’ve mostly been playing scales for the past week, which feels terribly worthy and is I’m sure doing wonders for my technique, but I now feel that playing something that actually sounds nice might spur me on a bit.

Here’s what I picked up:
- Edward Elgar, Six Very Easy Pieces in the first position, Bosworth – these look dead easy and apparently sound lovely (according to the very helpful Music Shop Lady), so hopefully right up my street.
- The Fiddler Playalong Viola Collection – “These might not be serious enough for you,” said Music Shop Lady. Lord knows what gave her the impression I was so serious but I felt pathetically flattered. Anyway, I’ve taken my chances with this frivolous collection, largely because I fancy having a go at playing along to a CD.
- “Naughty Bits”, Chamber Music Excerpts for Practice – OK, so basically I just liked the name. But the idea – which is that you group together a selection of especially tricky bits taken from oft-performed chamber music “so that they may be practised at leisure in preparation for chamber music sessions” – appealed as well. It also contrasts nicely with with my fiddling collection above.
– Solos For The Viola Player, selected and edited by Paul Doktor – a pleasantly varied selection of tunes (from Beethoven and Bach to american folksongs) with piano accompaniment.

That lot (plus a nursery rhyme book for the littlies) came to almost £50, so I’m hoping it’ll keep me going for a while. I shall get started this weekend and report back.

In the meantime, if you happen upon this blog and have any Viola favourites that you’ve enjoyed playing, I’d love to hear your recommendations.