While many great composers did not take into account the musical education of their descendants in their work, there is explicit children’s and educational literature from others. Among the best-known examples are certainly Bach, Mendelssohn or Schumann (Album for the Young). The Georgian pianist Giorgi Iuldashevi quotes from the latter work on his debut album under the name “Simplicity”, with which the young pianist dedicates himself to piano literature for children. Beginning with his compatriot Nodar Gabunia and his work “From the Diary of a Pupil” (1977), excerpts from “For Children, Vol. 1” by Béla Bartók, from György Kurtág’s “Játékok”, from the “Children’s Music”, Op. 65 by Sergei Prokofiev as well as from the “Children’s Album” Op. 39 by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky are played. This selection of these highly varied, simple miniatures for children, far from any banality, reveals what Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, among others, stated: “In the restriction the master shows himself”.
Works:
•Nodar Gabunia: From a Pupil’s Diary
•Béla Bartók: For Children, BB 53 Sz. 42, Vol. I
•György Kurtág: Játékok
•Sergei Prokofjew: Music for Children, Op. 65
•Peter I. Tschaikowsky: Children’s Album, Op. 39
•Robert Schumann: Album für die Jugend op. 68