Thursday 10 July 2025
from Concerto for Two Mandolins in G major, arranged for two flutes
The exact date of composition for the famous Concerto for two Mandolins in G major is unknown, but it is assumed that Vivaldi wrote it for the students at the Ospedale della Pietà, a home for abandoned children where Vivaldi worked from 1703 to 1740.
The middle Andante is arguably the most famous movement of the Concerto. It is in E minor, with the two mandolins performing throughout over just violins and violas played pizzicato and in unison. The graceful melody is built mostly of overlapping, echoing phrases, with the two soloists coming together only to intensify the emotion at certain points.
Wednesday 9 July 2025
from “Carmen” by Georges Bizet
Probably one of the most invigorating themes in all opera, the dashing “March of the Toreadors” serves as the very first theme of the prelude to Act I.
The flamboyant Spanish tune is almost a literal transcription of the festive music announcing the bull-fight in the last Act.
The opera's prelude also introduces some of the most important themes, including the famous “Toreador Song” and an exotic and sinewy chromatic motive that permeates the opera as a musical symbol for both Carmen's character and the insurmountable power of fate. There is an odd story told of this theme, which is said to be of Eastern origin. The legend is that when Satan, according to Mohammedan tradition, was cast from Paradise, he remembered only one strain of the music he had heard there. This was known as the “Devil's Strain”, and Bizet used it with fine symbolic as well as perfect musical fitness.
Tuesday 8 July 2025
Traditional Irish jig
The earliest known appearance of this jig is in Canon James Goodman's mid-19th-century manuscript, under the Irish title “Air maidin a nae bhí camadan sgéil” (“Yesterday morning there was a rigmarole of a tale”). The tune was subsequently included, with very minor modifications, in both Petrie's and O'Neill's early-20th-century collections.
Monday 7 July 2025
from “Eighteen Exercises or Etudes for Flute”
This is the seventeenth étude from 18 exercices pour la flûte traversière by French Romantic composer Benoit Tranquille Berbiguier. Don't get intimidated by all the sharps!
Sunday 6 July 2025
from Forty Progressive Duets for Two Flutes
Here is a nice duet from Volume I of Ernesto Köhler's Forty Progressive Duets. The upper voice is very simple to play, while the lower one features many large intervals in the first half of the piece.
Saturday 5 July 2025
Italian song by Eduardo Di Capua
Composed in 1899 by Eduardo Di Capua with lyrics by poet Vincenzo Russo, this song was originally entitled “Maria, Marì”, but it eventually came to be known as “Oi Marì” from the first words of its refrain.
The lyrics to this waltz, which are actually in Neapolitan dialect and not in Italian, depict a classical serenade: a window, a girl, and a suitor on the street below.
Open, o window!
Let Maria appear,
As I’m in the middle of the street
Hoping to see her!
I don’t have a moment's peace
I turn my night into day
To be always here
Hoping to talk to her!
Oi Marì, Oi Marì
How much sleep I lose over you!
Let me sleep
Just hugging you!
Friday 4 July 2025
Traditional Irish jig
This lively jig appears to be unique to Francis O'Neill's collection The Dance Music Of Ireland, published in Chicago in 1907.
