About the creation

This work by Shimon Cohen is the fruit of a collaboration between the composer and myself and is compounded of my transcriptions from his work for piano 4-hands A Little Different. This is a work composed with a didactic intention in order to get young pianists acquainted with asymmetrical time signatures and more complex ways of counting.When the composer showed it to me I observed that also young guitarists could be benefited by these didactic qualities in the form of a guitar duo. Cohen asked me then to try perhaps to transcribe it for solo guitar.After completing the transcription of three movements from the original works, I thought that they may create in a certain order a Sonatina for guitar that will nicely reflect the Mediterranean style of Shimon Cohen, derived directly from his teacher Paul Ben Haim.

Because of the complexity of the work, fingerings are given with great detail. Of course, any player can find for himself better suited personal solutions.

Dotted ties are meant to be guides for guitar l.h. fingering (second note shouldn't be plucked by r.h.). Normal ties are legato articulation instructions and appear exactly as in the original two-piano version of the work. Dotted ties are brought only as fingering suggestions and may be ignored. Likewise, other musical legato passages can be performed using the dotted ties even if not suggested by this edition.

Ruben Seroussi