I have a 13 year old boy working towards grade 4 recorder and we are having difficulty with choosing a list C piece. He has Time Pieces Volume 2, but does not like Waltz For Anna (nor do I!), but I am not familiar with the other pieces on the list. I don't want him to buy a book which will only be used for one piece for an exam. His taste in music is wide ranging, but he doesn't like modern "wierd" music. He is a lively boy who is very able musically on several instruments. Can anyone recommend anything likely to be suitable?

He might like Fred's Frolic from 50 Graded Studies. It has a light-hearted jazzy feel, but not weird! The book is a useful one, with a good selection of pieces from different periods. The first few studies would be useful as practice sight reading material as well.

Van Eyck should be in every recorder player's library and repertoire so that would be money very well spent and the Baroque Album containing the Boismortier is good too, as is the piece.

All of mine who have taken Grade 4 since the new syllabus came in have chosen Fred's Frolic as their list C piece in preference to any of the other options - it seems to be one of those instant-hit pieces with the pupils .

I agree that Waltz for Anna isn't a particularly attractive piece - and I think that on the whole the Time Pieces 1 books (both the descant and treble editions) are much better than Time Pieces 2 - there seem to be some rather unsuitable arrangements in the Book 2s, although there are a few good pieces too.

Fred's Frolic is probably the simplest option technically but personally I think it should be compulsory to do the Van Eyck!

Bag x

Thanks for the replies. It looks as if Fred's Frolic will be the most suitable - he's very into jazz on his saxophone and anything with a jazzy feel always goes down well. I'm not worried about the technical difficulty, but I want something that he will practice! It looks as if the rest of the book would be useful too. We already have the Schott Van Eyck's Der Fluiten-Lusthof (unfortunately not one that is used for exams), so I don't want another book with very similar content just for the sake of one exam piece. Personally I love Boismortier, so might have a look at that one too, though it is expensive at (minimum) £8.50 plus postage. I am very mindful of the cost to parents and look for good value in terms of repertoire for the books that I use.