This collection of fourteen pieces, together entitledPuppets, plays an exceptional role in thecatalogue of early works by Bohuslav Martinu (1890-1959), namely in that itrepresents thefirst works by Martinu which transcended his initial attempts at compositionand quicklyfound a publisher. Thanks to their lasting popularity particularly with youngpianists, theywere ultimately published in numerous editions. (The way the pieces arenumbered, whichthe composer verifiably accepted, however, does not correspond to their actualchronological order - they were, in fact, written in reverse order, so thatPuppets III camefirst, while Puppets I is the latest in the series.) All three books ofPuppets, which emergedbetween the years 1912 and 1925 and, despite their title, differ from oneanother in theiraesthetic approaches and progressive maturity, are published by EditioBarenreiter innew, revised urtext editions edited by Ales Brezina. This urtext edition withits relativelycomprehensive preface descr ibing the circumstances surrounding the advent ofthe work,is supported by the latest research and an assessment of all known andaccessiblesources, which the editor presents and clarifies in detail in his criticalcommentary tothe second and third books of Puppets. The second book (Puppets II) is dated1918and contains the following works: Puppet Theatre, Harlequin, ColombineRemembers,The Sick Puppet and Colombine Sings. Thanks to its witty musical ideas and thecomposer's empathy for children and their intellectual world, Puppets has,sinceits first edition, always been highly popular among performers.