Essential Advanced Cello Books in Order of Study

The perfect warm-up for early-advanced cello lessons!

The shifts in this book are stress-free and help students mentally connect to the fingerboard even after a long day at school.

The focus of the book should be intonation. Having students play with a strong, clear tone can help them hear their notes better and work on learning the spaces correctly.

Cassia makes up a piano accompaniment to these with simple chords that helps students hear their intonation. Teachers: if you don’t play the piano, drone notes can work the same way.

This is the book that Cassia uses to teach her students how to play scales.

Three-octave scale playing and higher positions can be introduced quite early with this book. The exercises dissect scales and teach the spaces and the shifts methodically. At the end of working through each four-page section that teaches a scale, students can reliably play that scale.

With students who already know how to play scales, this book can act as an intonation trainer. And because it works so intensively on every part of the scale, this book can be used to prepare scales for auditions!

This book gives students a comprehensive study of treble clef on the cello.  Before this book was written, treble clef was introduced to students with Learning Three-Octave Scales and Thumb Position School. 

However, it became clear that a step-by-step method was needed to both teach the clef and teach students how bass, tenor, and treble clef are releated to each other. 

Advanced students enjoy the relatively stress-free approach to learning the clef. 

A complete study of beginning thumb position.

This book focuses on playing across strings and learning finger spacing patterns in different keys.

Each page of exercises is followed by a page of short pieces that use the skills that were just taught.

For a series that is more spare, with just exercises and a heavy focus on shifting into thumb position, check out Thumb Position for the Cello, Books One and Two.

This book, along with Books Two and Three in the series, works on large shifts.

Although there are quite a lot of large shifts in advanced repertoire (for example Saint-Saens Concerto, Lalo Concerto, and Tchaikovsky Rococo Variations,) there is very little learning material to teach and work on these shifts.

Playing octave shifts regularly can help cellists learn fingerboard geography, develop muscle memory for these shifts, and prevent panic when larger shifts come up in music.

In the same way that scales are taught in Learning Three-Octave Scales for the Cello, arpeggios are taken apart and taught in this book.

Three separate fingering are included for each arpeggio: across strings, up the A-string, and using the thumb.

The exercises for these three sets of fingerings give students a comprehensive study of the cello fingerboard.

Arpeggios teach bigger shifts than scales do, making them absolutely essential training for advanced cellists.

Playing plain scales daily only helps students work on a limited set of skills. Assigning scale variations can exponentially increase the skills that are taught.

This book, along with Book Three and Book Four,  gives cellists daily scale variations that will provide a more comprehensive training in advanced cello technique.

In addition to all of this, scale variations help prevent boredom in a daily scale regimen!

The level and technical scope of Popper’s genius etudes for advanced cellomean that students often spend quite a bit of time on each etude.

The exercises in this book support the etudes, teaching every measure and helping students master all of the technique needed.

Both this volume and Volume Two are especially valuable books for students preparing for college auditions.

The seven published books in this series give students hundreds of daily thumb positions workouts that will train them for advanced repertoire.

Each exercise can be studied for 1-7 days.

As the exercises progress through the positions, they build strength and teach spacing.

Different volumes teach different skills, with this first book focusing on the spaces in major scales across two strings.

The books in this series were written to give advanced cellists daily exercises that cover the entire fingboard. The variations in this book primarily work on shifting but they should also be used to focus on building a strong, clear tone all over the fingerboard.

1-4 pages of these scale studies each day will effectively prepare students for shifting in advanced Sonata and Concerto repertoire.

Cassia considers this the most essential teaching Sonata ever written.

Romberg wove early-intermediate shifting into his music so skillfully that when the notes and rhythms are learned correctly, students are inevitably playing at a significantly higher level than when they started.

Once a student has learned a fair amount of fourth position and at least some second position, they will start studying this Sonata.

Cassia demands absolutely precise rhythm throughout this piece, usually playing the piano part along with her students. 

Around the time they start the Romberg E Minor Sonata, students are assigned The C Major Study Book for Cello. This teaches them to easily shift back and forth between fourth and seventh position as it is used in a brief difficult section in the 3rd movement.

The Breval Cello Sonata in C Major is a well-known teaching piece; a staple of cello pedagogical repertoire that is included in Suzuki Cello Book Four.

Cassia teaches this piece after the Romberg E Minor Sonata even though it has less shifting that that piece. The rhythmic complexity in the Breval Sonata demands a solid shifting technique.

In some cases, she does not teach the Breval Sonata at all and instead has her students sight-read it. She does this when students are on an intensive path with a rapid trajectory and she feels that the Breval does not have enough shifting at that point in time.

However, she does use this Sonata with many students, including adults, who love the delicately beautiful music and certainly benefit from studying it.

Besides being one of the greatest works ever written for cello, the Bach Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major is an excellent teaching piece!

Since the Prelude uses a lot of second position, learning that position before starting this book is recommended (Second Position for the Cello, Second Position Technical Studies for the Cello, and Finger Exercises for the Cello, Book Two.)

While all of the exercises needed to learn the Suite are included in the book, supplementary string crossing study with Open String Bow Workouts, Book One might be helpful as well.

Probably the least-known teaching piece on this list, the Romberg Cello Sonata in C Major is an absolute gem!

Using all of the skills that he taught in his Sonata in E Minor, Romberg adds layers of difficulty that make this an Intermediate Level II cello piece.

More shifting, more rhythm, and more opportunities for phrasing culminate in several bravura sections that again eleveate the level of the student studying this piece.

The exercises in this book, written for every measure of the piece, build a strong foundation in shifting, left-hand agility, and string crossing.

This is a perfect piece to study before the Goltermann Cello Concerto No. 4.

This piece is a staple of traditional cello teaching repertoire. The last movement is included in Suzuki Book Five but Cassia actually loves teaching the first movement a bit more.

Dramatic, sweeping, and full of technical skills to master, this Concerto is an essential Intermediate II piece to learn on the path to Advanced music.

Listening to recordings of this piece (particularly the full orchestra version put out by Dowani) can be extremely helpful for students who don’t quite “get” what the piece should sound like. 

The Squire Tarantella is a wonderfully exciting teaching piece that allows students to really explore their musicality.

This piece can be studied either before or after the Goltermann Concerto No. 4, depending on the student. Suzuki put it in Book Six, along with the Goltermann 3rd movement.

Students should have a good grasp of left-hand agility in 6/8 timing before starting this piece. If they don’t, teachers can assign The Triplet Books for Cello and ask for the exercises and pieces in those books to be played as fast as possible.

Cassia uses this book to help her students work on tone and shifting into the higher positions. 

Included in Suzuki Book Six, The Swan is often used as an intermediate teaching piece. Practically speaking, it is much more of an early-advanced piece, as it requires significant left and right hand strength to be able to make the higher notes sound good. 

The books in the Open String Bow Workouts series are a good precursor to this book. They help prepare for pieces like The Swan that require a thick, luscious tone by letting the student focus on getting every note ringing without the distraction of hte left hand. 

One very memorable year, Cassia had to teach the Faure Elegie to eleven different students weekly, from June to December, for a district orchestra audition.

Several months in, she realized that she was giving out identical corrections and practice suggestions. Students would then go home, forget the suggestions, come in the next week and have to start over. That was the impetus for writing this book. 

The cello repertoire study books allow teachers to assign exercises during the week that teach the notes in a section. If the technique has already been learned, lesson time can be spent on musicality, phrasing, etc. 

This exciting, bravura teaching piece is often assigned to prepare students to play the Saint-Saens Cello Concerto.

However, there is still a fair amount of difference between the two pieces technically. And if Allegro Appassionato is sloppily learned, the distance to the Saint-Saens Concerto No. 1 is even greater.

This book can help! By giving students exercises that help them master every note of the piece, this book solidifies their technique in anticipation of their first major Concerto.

This book helps students learn and master every measure of this piece, which is often used as a student’s first “major” Concerto. 

Cassia actually chooses the first Concerto based on each student’s personality and technique. The Saint-Saens Concerto No. 1, the Haydn Concerto in C Major, and the Lalo Cello Concerto are all good choices for the first Concerto. 

Whenever this piece is taught, students tend to get stuck at the top of the third page, with the double stops. This book gives ample exercises for mastering that (and every) section in this important Concerto. 

Students can now master the highly technical last “movement” of the Saint-Saens’ Cello Concerto No. 1.

From fast runs, to patterns of sixteenth notes that cover the fingerboard, to double stop octaves, to artificial harmonics, every measure and every difficulty in this movement is taught. 

Don’t just stop at teaching the first “movement”! The end of this magnificent Concerto is worth learning and mastering!

The exercises in this book will take students to the next level, giving them skills that they will use in all of the other Concertos in the repertoire.