About us

SJ Music was established in 1987 by Judith Rattenbury, a computing consultant and amateur cellist, and Sue Otty, a music teacher, to provide well-printed typeset parts for Sue's string player students. Using appropriate software, Judith published some duets by Gehot - and other string chamber music followed, for a variety of combinations, and with varying degrees of difficulty - suitable for professionals, amateurs and students. SJ Music was sold to Alison Atkinson (Judith's niece) and Stephen Lustig in 2015.

Most of our music is by 18th and 19th century composers who were often well known and successful in their lifetimes, but are now not so well known. Examples are Hummel, Bréval, Gehot, and Onslow. However, we also publish music by more modern composers such as Holst, Jacob, Shostakovich and Bunting.

Some music includes piano, and we have a few pieces that include the clarinet. The size of ensemble needed to play the music ranges from two to ten (with some studies and exercises for solo practice).

All our sheet music has been carefully typeset to provide a clear and pleasant playing experience, and is professionally printed on off-white paper to avoid glare.

We have a lot of music for the cello,  and one of our bestsellers is the world famous Essay on the Craft of Cello Playing (two volumes – text and musical examples) by Christopher Bunting. We also publish studies and exercises, and several scores.

The difficulty of the music we publish varies from fairly challenging for the average amateur or student (especially 1st violin parts), to straightforward pieces suitable for beginners or intermediate standard players. Some of the solo pieces are on exam syllabuses – you can find them as a separate category on the web site.

We hope that you will find something among our pieces of music that interests you. Almost everything is cheaper than a good restaurant meal, and a lot can be bought for the price of the dessert alone – and, unlike buying a meal, the pleasure of playing the music can be repeated as often as you want, without paying again!