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This famous duet is sung in the finale of Act II of Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, when the birdcatcher Papageno uses his magic bells to summon Papagena. Papageno is so thrilled to find his beloved Papagena that at first they can only stutter blissed-out “Pa … pa … pa …” noises at each other!
This popular march was written in 1914 by Lieutenant F.J. Ricketts, a British military bandmaster. Since at that time service personnel were not encouraged to have professional lives outside the armed forces, Ricketts published “Colonel Bogey” and his other compositions under the pseudonym Kenneth Alford.
Who was Colonel Bogey? The story goes that this was a nickname by which a certain fiery colonel was known just before the 1914 War. One of the composer's recreations was playing golf, and it was on a Scottish course that he sometimes encountered the eccentric colonel. One of the latter's peculiarities was that instead of shouting “Fore” to warn of an impending drive, he preferred to whistle a descending minor third. This little musical tag stayed and germinated in the mind of the receptive Ricketts, and so the opening of this memorable march was born.
In 1957 the march was chosen as the theme tune for the splendid film The Bridge on the River Kwai, and it became so identified with this film that many people now incorrectly refer to the “Colonel Bogey March” as “The River Kwai March”. The problem is that this title actually refers to a completely different march, written for the film by composer Malcolm Arnold!
This minor-mode jig appears to be unique to Chicaco Police captain Francis O'Neill's celebrated collection The Dance Music of Ireland, published in 1907.
Here is another étude by Danish flutist Joachim Andersen. This jumpy Allegretto in D minor is study No. 24 from his Twenty-Four Etudes for Flute, Op. 33.
Here is the second movement of Georg Philipp Telemann's sixth Canonic Sonata for two flutes. This Soave in 12/8 time starts off in B-flat major, but seems to end up in F major.
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.
This jig is taken from Francis O'Neill's collection Dance Music of Ireland, published in Chicago in 1907. Fiddler John Carey, a native of Limerick, is given as the source for the tune. In his later book Irish Folk Music, O'Neill states that the tune was previously “unpublished and new to us”.
Ballinascarty, also known as Ballinascarthy, is a village in County Cork, in the south-west of Ireland.