Teacher tells me Dr. Suzuki chose this final piece in Book One as a sort of graduation piece.  In addition to being by far the longest piece I’ve worked with to date, it’s by far the most complicated too.  It’s called Gavotte, by a Classical French composer named Francois-Joseph Gossec.  Gossec does not have the fame of some of his contemporaries, but most listeners would recognize Gavotte – Wikipedia notes it was used in several Warner Brothers cartoons.

As I searched for more information about Gavotte and Gossec, I ran across another WordPress blogger of interest.  Writing at Suzuki Skeptic, the author traces the piece’s excerption from one of Gossec’s longer works to late 19^th/early 20^th century violinist Willy Burmester, who composed a volume of re-arrangements for violin.  The blogger then speculates that Burmester’s repertoire became known to Suzuki, and the popular nature of the tune finally ensured its place in Suzuki’s series.

I’m not sure how long Teacher and I will take to get through the rest of Gavotte; it’s exciting to be at the end of a book, but I still feel like I have barely scratched the musical surface of these last four songs – I’ll keep working on them, but at some point I’m going to have to revise my practice methods – I’m having less and less time when I get to my newest piece.  It might be time to stop starting with Twinkle Twinkle.

Thanks for reading.

Ryan