Our History
The first volume of the Gárdián Cello Tutorials for beginners was co-written with András Borgulya. It was published in Budapest in 1992 after a long series of internationally-focused professional work. A second volume followed this in 2003 and 2004 for advanced students, divided into two parts.
Its birth arose from the need to provide children learning to play the cello with a modern Hungarian curriculum that preserves classical values, following a consistently constructed pedagogical system that experientially guides them from the initial steps of learning an instrument to the threshold of becoming an artist.
By the ’90s, most Hungarian textbooks used earlier had lost their modernity. After the work of Dávid Popper, Adolf Schiffer, and later Antal Friss, who laid the foundations and developed cello education in Hungary, the modernization and completion of the teaching material for Hungarian cello education became indispensable by the end of the 1990s. Thus, decades of creative work, without any payment or commission, began in complete silence in Hungary, in the countryside.
“I started compiling the curriculum for my cello teaching at the beginning of my teaching career. At this stage, music teachers usually gather experience, try different learning materials, and familiarize themselves with pieces – I did the same. Professional gatherings often turned into heated debates and conversations. We asked each other about different teaching methods, accessible and usable learning materials, and collections of pieces.
Who knows and uses what? What experiences can each add to the work of their colleagues? During these professional conversations, I realized that nearly all of us were struggling with the same problem: The lack of a methodically structured cello school with an up-to-date curriculum and good performance pieces.”
During the initial editorial work, it quickly became clear to me that to modernize today’s cello education, it was no longer enough to collect and organize the practices and pieces found in the old sheet music into a new methodological process. The contribution of a contemporary Hungarian composer, who can synthesize and adapt the musical material collected for each instrumental technique to today’s musical language and complete the structure of the newly emerging curriculum by composing new pieces, was indispensable.
This work, which requires great professional humility and exceptional inventiveness as a composer, was undertaken from the beginning by András Borgulya. His nearly two decades of dedicated work made it possible to have the most beautiful pieces of Hungarian and European cello literature born in the last two hundred years to see the light of day as part of the Gárdián Cello Tutorials. In a renewed form, following the highest musical quality, they were saved for future generations and for the cello education of the future. Performance pieces, composed for the cello school and adapted to the given knowledge level of students, are outstanding in terms of their pedagogical value. Additionally, its exquisitely tailored, style-shaping character pieces are captivating even for the youngest of children while creating a musical world filled with joyful moments for advanced students.
The volumes of the Gárdián Cello Tutorials guide students from the basics of cello playing to higher playing techniques. Valuable musical knowledge and an appreciation of it are conveyed in a highly systematic way. This is achieved in a relaxed learning environment that grows children’s musical comprehension and love of music.
The authors now work tirelessly to complete and develop the series and prepare for a breakthrough international release in China.
