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A New Score a Day!

Welcome to your daily source of free flute sheet music. Our commitments:

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Monday 8 February 2010

Tune of the Day: Pezzo in forma di sonatina

 from Tchaikovsky's Serenade in C major

“Pezzo in forma di sonatina” is the name Tchaikovsky gave to the first movement of his Serenade for Strings in C major, Op. 48. Premiered in 1880, this work remains one of the late Romantic era's most definitive compositions.

Tchaikovsky intended the first movement to be an imitation of Mozart's style, and he based it on the form of the classical sonatina, starting with a slow introductory section. This stirring “Andante non troppo” introduction, which bears the indication "sempre marcatissimo" (“always very marked”), is restated at the end of the movement, and also reappears, transformed, in the coda of the last movement, thus tying the entire work together.

Bookmark and ShareCategories: Romantic Serenades
Sunday 7 February 2010

Tune of the Day: Country Gardens

 Traditional English morris dance tune

“Country Gardens” is one of the many English folk tunes that was collected and notated by British folk tune revivalist, Cecil J. Sharp.

Australian-born composer Percy Grainger arranged the tune for piano in 1918 as a birthday gift for his mother, Rose. At the ending of a concert in 1918, he played this arrangement, and the audience was so pleased with it that Grainger decided to have it published. “Country Gardens” broke all selling records; in the U.S. more than 40.000 copies a year were sold. Grainger eventually hated the piece, because he was always associated with it.

American singer Jimmie Rodgers has recorded a well-known version of the tune.

Saturday 6 February 2010

Tune of the Day: Menuetto

 from “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

The third movement from Mozart's highly popular “Little Serenade” is a minuet and trio in A–B–A form. This movement is in the tonic key of G major, and although marked “Allegretto” it is commonly played at a fairly quick tempo of about 138–144 BPM.

It contains two themes, one in the minuet and one in the trio. The movement begins with the minuet, then the trio theme enters modulating to the dominant key of D major. The minuet is finally played once more, this time omitting the repeats, so the movement ends in G major.

Mozart's entry for Eine Kleine Nachtmusik in his catalogue shows that the work originally had two minuets, for a total of five movements; the other minuet, which in the original version of the work figured as the second movement, was later removed, but nobody knows if by Mozart himself or by someone else. This mysterious missing movement has apparently been lost, although according to some musicologists Mozart may have reused it in Piano Sonata in B-flat, K498a.

Thanks to Olivia for requesting this piece!

Bookmark and ShareCategories: Classical Serenades
Saturday 6 February 2010

New Article: How to Practice Sight-reading

Practical tips to improve your sight-reading skills

In response to a request by Chloe, we are posting an article about sight-reading and how to practice it. We hope this article will prove a useful addition, since the whole site is mostly about sight-reading!

The article is divided into four parts. The introductory part points out the benefits that good sight-reading skills can bring, and tries to dispel some of the myths on this subject. The second part describes what exercises you should include in your practice routine in order to be more successful at sight-reading. The third part lists all the elements that you should examine before starting to sight-read a given piece. Finally, the fourth part contains tips about how to sight-read effectively.

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Friday 5 February 2010

Tune of the Day: Across the Field

 Ohio State University fight song

“(Fight The Team) Across the Field” is one of several fight songs of the Ohio State University, and the oldest one still in current use. Written in 1915 by OSU student William A. Dougherty, Jr., it made its first public appearance the same year at a pep rally for the football game against Illinois.

Although the lyrics reference football heroics, the song is used by teams of all sports, and has also been adapted by many other universities and high schools in the United States.

Bookmark and ShareCategories: Marches Sports music
Thursday 4 February 2010

Tune of the Day: Air à l'Italien

 from Suite in A minor by G.P. Telemann

In the Ouverture-Suite in A minor, TWV 55:a2 Telemann is revealed once more as a master of the “mixed taste”: the suite contains a pair of French minuets, two passepieds from Brittany, a Polish polonaise, and this “Air in the Italian style”, thus enhancing Telemann's pan-European reputation for inventive use of the orchestra in a form to which he was particularly attached.

The fourth movement from the suite is titled “Air à l’Italien”, although a more correct French spelling would be “Air à l'Italienne”. (Also, this is sometimes referred to as the third movement, because the two “Les Plaisirs” preceding it may be considered as a single movement.) This “Air“ is a baroque operatic aria in Italian da capo form, as found in Handel: a cantabile first part followed by a contrasting virtuoso middle section.

Bookmark and ShareCategories: Baroque
Wednesday 3 February 2010

Tune of the Day: Maria, Marì

 Italian song by Eduardo Di Capua

Composed in 1899 by Eduardo Di Capua with lyrics by poet Vincenzo Russo, this song was originally entitled “Maria, Marì”, but it eventually came to be known as “Oi Marì” from the first words of its refrain.

The lyrics to this waltz, which are actually in Neapolitan dialect and not in Italian, depict a classical serenade: a window, a girl, and a suitor on the street below.

Open, o window!
Let Maria appear,
As I’m in the middle of the street
Hoping to see her!

I don’t have a moment's peace
I turn my night into day
To be always here
Hoping to talk to her!

Oi Marì, Oi Marì
How much sleep I lose over you!
Let me sleep
Just hugging you!

Tuesday 2 February 2010

Tune of the Day: Tambourin

 by François-Joseph Gossec

Even the best-known composer in his lifetime may fall into obscurity after death. Belgian composer François-Joseph Gossec was acknowledged to be the greatest instrumental composer at the close of the ancien régime in France (Marie Antoinette loved his music) and, after an amazing about-face, he was also acknowledged to be the greatest composer of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic periods (Robespierre loved his music).

But all his fame has faded from memory, and Gossec is instead remembered for having composed the “Tambourin” for Flute and Orchestra. Taken from his divertissement-lyrique (a genre similar to opera) Le triomphe de la République, ou Le camp de Grandpré, this delightfully bright and lively piece is nearly mandatory among flutists: James Galway and Jean-Pierre Rampal have performed and recorded it numerous times.