Hi, I'm a newbie. Returned to playing violin after a 30 year gap and considering sitting G5 at end of the year. Interested in which pieces other people are choosing.

I've not been overly enamoured by the G5 choices this time around. You might enjoy the Vivaldi, although it's not in the ABRSM book. However, the Corelli is the one I'm opting for with most pupils for list A, as it fits nicely with talking about the basics of harmonic direction, awareness of how the violin figurations fit with particular chords (especially dominant 7ths), and so on.

For List B, it's a mixture. Pastorale is musically self-explanatory, and a good opportunity to show off some vibrato, but the Reger (not in the book but available for download freely, as it's out of copyright) is more interesting.

List C: most people are choosing the Tango (I can't stand its real title, it's so naff and at the same time embarassing for/with twelve-year olds!), but persuaded one student to attack Fast And Slow, which certainly offers more opportunity to get under the skin of a non-classical sound world.

I don't want anyone doing the Greek piece for more than exploratory reasons, because there's absolutely no musical substance, an so I can't conceive of keeping motivated about the piece up to the exam. If I couldn't, I would be wrong to expect them to.

I'm the opposite. It's a relief to get rid of the last lot, there were a couple of good ones, but considering the wealth of violin repertoire out there..
My pupils are having problems choosing out of the new lists because they like them all so much. 2 of them have said can they take a bit longer until they actually take the exam so they can learn several from each list then choose the best closer to the exam.
I'm relieved, especially as we have each set for several years nowadays.

I like quite a lot of the pieces too, particularly from B and C. There seems to be a lot of variety. Is there much difference between how difficult they are to play? Less keen on A pieces except Telemann or Bach. In B, I like Pastorale and le petit air and in C the Israeli concertina, the Tango and the Greek piece which I think looks interesting to play.
It would be interesting to know what other people are interested in playing, and whether some piece would be easier to achieve higher marks in.