Free Flute Sheet Music

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!

Tune of the Day: Triste by Telemann

The first movement of Georg Philipp Telemann's Sonata in F minor for bassoon and basso continuo is marked “Triste”, which in Italian literally means “sad”. Indeed, right in the opening of the movement the composer creates a peculiar atmosphere by a very effective use of a mournful triplet figure, which may sound a bit surprising to the unprepared listener.

Tune of the Day: A Wife of My Own

This 9/8-time jig probably originated in Scotland in the first half of the 18th century, when it started being included in a number of manuscripts. Its earliest known appearance is in the Scottish Drummond Castle Manuscript, which is inscribed “A Collection of Country Dances written for the use of his Grace the Duke of Perth by Dav. Young, 1734”.

O'Farrell's Pocket Companion (1806) gives the tune's provenance as Irish, but this appears to be an isolated opinion.

Tune of the Day: Study in A minor by Kummer

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