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Tune of the Day: Ride a Mile

This melody is an old one, and known throughout Britain and Ireland. And as it often happens, the strains of this family of tunes have been variously combined and recombined with other strains and arranged in different orders, resulting in many different variants.

Under the title “Ride a Mile”, this jig can be traced back at least to the mid-19th century. It was included in Ryan's Mammoth Collection (Boston, 1883), but also in the manuscript of musically-literate farmer and fiddler Philip Carolan from County Mayo, probably compiled around the 1860s.

Tune of the Day: Study in G major by Kummer

This is the fifteenth study from German flutist and composer Caspar Kummer's 32 Etudes amusantes et instructives, Op. 129, first published in 1858.

Tune of the Day: Spiritoso by Telemann

This is the fourth and final movement from the sixth of Telemann's Sonates sans Basse à deux Flutes traverses, ou à deux Violons, ou à deux Flutes à bec, or “Sonatas without Bass for Two Transverse Flutes, or Two Violins, or Two Recorders”.

Tune of the Day: Overture from Il barbiere di Siviglia

Rossini was well known for being remarkably productive, completing an average of two operas per year for 19 years, and in some years writing as many as four. Musicologists believe that, true to form, the music for Il barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville) was composed in just under three weeks, and some of the themes in the famous overture were actually borrowed from two earlier Rossini operas, Aureliano in Palmira and Elisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra.

The first performance of this opera in 1816 was a disastrous failure: the audience hissed and jeered throughout, and several on-stage accidents occurred. However, many of the audience were supporters of one of Rossini's rivals, Giovanni Paisiello, who had already set The Barber of Seville to music, and took Rossini's new version to be an affront to his version. The second performance met with quite a different fate, becoming a roaring success. It is curious to note that the original French play of Le Barbier de Séville endured a similar story, hated at first only to become a favorite within a week!

Tune of the Day: The Highway to Kilkenny

The first known appearance of this slip jig is in Chicago Police Captain Francis O'Neill's collection The Dance Music of Ireland, published in 1907.

The tune is also known as “The High Road to Kilkenny”, and “The Humors of Kilkenny”. Kilkenny is a medieval city in southeast Ireland.

Tune of the Day: Study in E-flat major by Gariboldi

Today we present the thirteenth study from Italian composer Giuseppe Gariboldi's Etudes mignonnes (Dainty Studies), Op. 131.

Tune of the Day: Vivace by Loeillet

This Vivace in E minor is taken from Belgian Baroque composer Jean-Baptiste Loeillet's second book of Six sonatas of two parts, made on purpose for two German flutes, first published in London in 1720.

Thanks to Joyce Kai for contributing this piece!