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Here is a new duet from the first volume of Ernesto Köhler's Forty Progressive Duets, Op. 55. In this ternary-form piece the upper voice plays a very simple but graceful melody, while the lower voice is busy playing scales and arpeggios.
The Ouverture-Suite in A minor, TWV 55:a2 contains two consecutive minuets. While the first is played by the strings alone, the second one features the flute as its leading instrument. This second movement is titled, in the French style, “Menuet II”. It will perfectly lend itself to a study in Baroque articulation.
Thanks to Greg for suggesting this piece!
This jig is taken from Francis O'Neill's The Dance Music of Ireland, published in Chicago in 1907. It was probably derived from a Scottish tune, first published under the title “Miss Douglas Brigton's Jigg” in John Bowie's A Collection of Strathspey Reels and Country Dances (Edinburgh, 1789).
This Allegro moderato is étude No. 9 from Italian Romantic composer Giuseppe Gariboldi's collection of 30 Etudes faciles et progressives.
Here is another nice duet from La scuola del flauto (The School of the Flute) by Luigi Hugues, this time taken from volume 1.
Thanks to Paolo for contributing this piece!
The symphonic suite Scheherazade was composed by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov in 1888. It is based on The Book of One Thousand and One Nights, sometimes known as The Arabian Nights. Rimsky-Korsakov's headnote explains the scenario:
The Sultan Schahriar, persuaded of the falseness and faithlessness of women, has sworn to put to death each one of his wives after the first night. But the Sultana Scheherazade saved her life by interesting him in tales she told him during 1001 nights. Pricked by curiosity, the Sultan put off his wife's execution from day to day, and at last gave up entirely his bloody plan.
Four such lifesaving narratives, rendered in music, follow. In later years, however, Rimsky-Korsakov declared that Scheherazade should be regarded as a symphonic suite with an unspecified Oriental program.
The theme we present today is probably the most famous, and appears at the beginning of the third movement, titled “The Young Prince and the Young Princess”.
The earliest appearances of this tune are as an untitled jig in P.W. Joyce's Ancient Irish Music (1873) and Elias Howe's 1000 Jigs and Reels (c. 1867). The title “A Trip to Galway” is first found in Ryan's Mammoth Collection (1883). P.W. Joyce writes: “This spirited tune has remained in my memory since I was a child [in the 1840s in County Limerick] and I could hardly help learning it, for it was a general favourite with fiddlers, pipers and dancers.”