Welcome to your daily source of free sheet music.
But wait, there's more:
So… Enjoy! And let us know if you have any request by dropping us a message!
This easy study in triplets is taken from Giuseppe Gariboldi's Vingt petites études, or Twenty Studies. Play this piece evenly, and mind your articulation and phrasing.
According to Greek mythology, Orpheus was “the father of songs”: with his music and singing, he could charm birds, fish and wild beasts, coax the trees and rocks into dance, and even divert the course of rivers.
When his wife Eurydice died of a snake bite, Orpheus played such sad songs and sang so mournfully that all the nymphs and gods wept. On their advice, Orpheus traveled to the underworld and by his music softened the hearts of Hades and Persephone (he was the only person ever to do so), who agreed to allow Eurydice to return with him to earth on one condition: he should walk in front of her and not look back until they both had reached the upper world. He set off with Eurydice following and in his anxiety as soon as he reached the upper world he turned to look at her, forgetting that both needed to be in the upper world, and she vanished for the second time.
It is then that Orpheus intones the lament, “Che farò senza Euridice?” (“What will I do without Eurydice?”), a sublime aria which has truly become immortal.
This gavotte is the fourth 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.
This jig was first printed by Nathaniel Gow in his Fifth Collection of Strathspeys, Reels, etc. (Edinburgh, 1809), where it is identified as “Irish”, although the fourth part is attributed to “Mr. Sharpe of Hoddam”, a Perthshire gentleman-amateur violinist.
The melody was notably popularized by Irish fiddle master Michael Coleman, who recorded it on Columbia records in 1921.
This is étude No. 13 of the first book of Ernesto Köhler's Progress in Flute Playing, Op. 33. The first part is a melancholic moderate-tempo barcarole, while the second part is “more agitated” (“Più mosso”) but still graceful (“con grazia”).
Thanks to Neri for suggesting this piece!
This is the opening movement of a sonata in A minor for two flutes by the German Baroque composer and music theorist Johann Mattheson. It was published in Amsterdam in 1708.
Jacques Hotteterre is regarded as one of the most outstanding French musicians of the baroque period. He was the most celebrated of a family of wind instrument makers and wind performers.
Hotteterre owed his fame largely to his talent playing the flute, an instrument for which he wrote a number of pieces, significantly extending the repertory for the instrument. In addition, he played the bassoon, oboe, and musette (French bagpipe). He was also an internationally celebrated teacher to aristocratic patrons, and he wrote a few methods for the transverse flute.
In addition to performance and teaching, Hotteterre continued his family's tradition of wind instrument making. It may have been Hotteterre who made a number of changes in the design of the transverse flute, though there is little concrete evidence for this. Most notably, the flute, which had previously been made in one cylindrical piece, was cut in three pieces: the head, the body and the foot.