Free Flute Sheet Music

Tune of the Day: Rondeau

Tremendously popular for his extended stage works during the reign of Louis XIV, Jean-Joseph Mouret today is remembered only for this fanfare, lasting less than two minutes. Oddly, it became associated with the pomp and glory of England, not of France, when in 1971 WGBH radio announcer Robert J. Lurtsema proposed it as the theme for Masterpiece Theatre, WGBH-TV's repackagings of BBC historical dramas for broadcast on American public television.

The piece, taken from Mouret's first Suite de Symphonies (Fanfares for Trumpets, Kettledrums, Violins and Oboes), is a popular musical choice in many modern weddings.

Tune of the Day: Gavotta by Braun

This gavotte is the third 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 Ruins of Killmallock

This jig is taken from Francis O'Neill's collection Music of Ireland, published in Chicago in 1903. It had previously appeared under the title “Old Walls of Liscarroll” in Ryan's Mammoth Collection (Boston, 1883), although with the first strain in minor mode and a few minor differences in the second strain.

Kilmallock, a town of less than 2000 residents in south County Limerick, was during the middle ages the third largest city in Ireland. The ruins of a Dominican friary, built in the 13th century but sacked by Cromwell's forces in 1648, are still visible today, as well as the remains of the medieval walls which encircled the settlement.

Tune of the Day: Study in E minor by Köhler

This étude, No. 6 of the first book of Ernesto Köhler's Progress in Flute Playing, is a nice exercise in octave-jumping, but also contains arpeggios and short chromatic runs. After a development of the ideas stated in the introduction and a repetition of the initial theme, the piece ends in a fast coda, marked “Vivace”.

Tune of the Day: Chaconne by Mattheson

This is the fourth and final 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: Ecossaise in G major

The écossaise is a variety of contredance (a folk dance in which couples dance in two facing lines) in a Scottish style, characterized by a very proud rhythm. It was especially popular in France and England at the end of the 18th century and at the beginning of the 19th.

As a musical form it was used by some classical composers like Franz Schubert, Ludwig van Beethoven and Frédéric Chopin, who wrote a number of écossaises for the piano which are recognized for their liveliness.

Tune of the Day: Sergeant Stack's Favorite

This lively jig is taken from Francis O'Neill's celebrated collection Music of Ireland, published in Chicago in 1903. The Sergeant Stack of the title was Patrick Stack, who worked together with O'Neill in the Chicago Police force.

Musician and researcher Paul de Grae observes that “the recurring feature of four notes in the time of three is carefully notated, and must have been a prominent feature of Stack's playing”.