[…] In the autumn of 2011, Mr Ondřej Pivoda, an employee of the Music Department of the Moravian Museum in Brno, informed that he had found a copy of piano pieces that could be by Bohuslav Martinů. After examining the source, we arrived at the conclusion that it is the piano cycle Crotchets and Quavers, H 257, dating from 1937. The work was also mentioned by Miloš Šafránek in the list of compositions in his monograph on Bohuslav Martinů (London 1962). Further evidence of the pieces’ existence can be found in Martinů’s correspondence with the publisher Melantrich and Karel Šebánek from 1937 and 1938. […] piece has never been published by Melantrich.
The complete title of the cycle is “Crotchets and Quavers. Instructive Exercises with Alternating Metres. (Advanced Level)”, or at least this is how it reads on the title page of the copy written in someone else’s hand that is deposited at the Moravian Museum in Brno. The cycle has four parts, Moderato – Poco Allegro – Andante – Allegretto, and none of them exceeds two minutes in duration. Crotchets and Quavers is a valuable set of miniatures not only within Martinů’s piano works, but within the literature for the piano. Martinů clarified the point of the little pieces in the title itself – in all parts of the cycle, quavers really are the smallest rhythmic value, alternating with crotchets and exceptionally with half-notes. Yet the player must cope with frequent or constant variation of metres (2/4, 3/4, etc.).
We can assume that Crotchets and Quavers was written on commission by the publisher, who needed instructive piano literature, which always has guaranteed market sales. Martinů had previously written similar etudes (although for different forces) for the French publisher Eschig and Germany’s Schott, Mainz. In terms of its musical content, Crotchets and Quavers can be ranked alongside such short piano pieces as the Instructive Duo for Nervous People, H 145, Avec un doigt, H 185, Par T.S.F., H 173 bis, Esquisses, H 203; and, when it comes to their educational focus, the cycles Puppets I–III (H 92, H 116 and H 137).
Bärenreiter prepared the cycle for publication during the course of 2012 in co-operation with the Bohuslav Martinů Institute in Prague.
Lucie Harasim Berná, Crotchets and Quavers, a Newly Discovered Gem ff Instructive Piano Literature by Bohuslav Martinů. © Marinů Revue, January–April 2012, vol. XII, No. 1, s. 10.