Discover the joys of playing in an ensemble!
Now that you've embarked on your gamba journey, you may have found some other musicians who you'd like to play with. Or perhaps you're a cellist in a cello quartet or choir, looking for some beautiful music to work on together. You're in the right place!
During my 25 years of cello ensemble coaching, I have arranged over one hundred pieces, from the 12th century to the 20th, from three to eight cellos. All of these works lie perfectly within the range of either cellos or gambas (or bassoons or trombones, if you like!) and range in difficulty from the straightforward to the rhythmically complex. In the description of each piece, I indicate the difficulty and the challenges you will encounter.
Each piece includes the complete score that you can either print out or download to your device. If the score is more than three pages, I have also included individual parts, but I would encourage you to play from the score if possible, so as to understand how all the parts fit together. If the arrangement is of a vocal work, I have included the lyrics in at least one voice so that you can keep track of the meaning of the words under the music. To avoid ledger lines, the top part is often notated in treble clef; I have avoided C clefs so as to avoid favoring either cellos or gambas. If you discover along the way that you need a different layout or different clefs, please just let me know. And I'd love to hear what you think about these pieces! Feel free to drop me a line with questions or suggestions. I hope you enjoy discovering this music as much as I have!