Free Flute Sheet Music

Tune of the Day: Das klinget so herrlich

This is definitely one of the most hilarious scenes from The Magic Flute. It's at the end of Act I. Papageno and Pamina are looking for Tamino, but their search is interrupted by Monostatos, who mocks them and prepares to tie them up. Pamina and Papageno fear the worst, when Papageno remembers his Magic Bells: “He who dares has all to win!.” He lets the little bells sing out. Monostatos and the Slaves are entranced, and they all dance away singing this joyful song:

It sounds so happy,
Sounds so gay!
Larala la la larala!
Let’s sing and dance our time away!
Larala la la larala!

Tune of the Day: Largo by Braun

This Largo is the opening movement of the fourth of the six Op. 7 flute sonatas with bass accompaniment by French flutist and composer Jean-Daniel Braun, published in Paris in 1736.

Tune of the Day: The Old Horned Sheep

This melody was first printed in Ryan's Mammoth Collection (Boston, 1883), under the title “The Boss”. It appears to be an amalgam of two old Irish tunes, “Humors of Donnybrook” and “Sweet Biddy Daly”.

Tune of the Day: Study in G minor by Köhler

Here is another étude from the first book of Ernesto Köhler's Progress in Flute Playing. This triple-meter piece makes heavy use of articulation. It is marked martellato, which translates literally from Italian as ‛hammered’, thus calling for very strong accents.

Tune of the Day: Allegro by Mattheson

This Allegro is the second movement of a sonata in B-flat major for two flutes by the German Baroque composer and music theorist Johann Mattheson. It was published in Amsterdam in 1708.

Tune of the Day: Adagio in D minor

Alessandro Marcello was a Venetian nobleman who excelled in various areas, including poetry, philosophy, mathematics and, most notably, music. This concerto he wrote in D minor for oboe, strings and basso continuo is perhaps his best-known work. Its worth was attested to by Johann Sebastian Bach, who transcribed it for harpsichord (BWV 974).

The central movement, in particular, is a deeply-felt adagio which aspires to genuine pathos. As such, it has been used effectively in many movies, like The Hunger (with David Bowie and Susan Sarandon), The Firm (with Tom Cruise and Gene Hackman) or the more recent The House of Mirth.

Tune of the Day: The Fardown Farmer

This Irish jig is taken from Francis O'Neill's celebrated collection Music of Ireland, published in Chicago in 1903.

The term ‛fardown’ was used in the 19th and 20th centuries, often by Irish-Americans, to describe someone from Ulster, the northernmost province of Ireland.