Free Flute Sheet Music

Tune of the Day: Andante

This Andante for flute and classical guitar was kindly contributed to our collection by its composer, guitarist Peter Pope. Many thanks for sharing your music with us, Peter!

Tune of the Day: The Blooming Meadows

The earliest known appearance of this tune is in the American collection Howe's 1000 Jigs and Reels, published in Boston around 1867.

Charlie Piggott, in the essay on Kilmaley, County Clare, fiddler, flute player and uilleann piper Peader O'Loughlin in his book Blooming Meadows (1998), remarks on tunes being disseminated into local, isolated traditions in Ireland by visiting musicians. Such was the case for “Blooming Meadows”, which was introduced into the Kilmaley-Connolly area by traveling piper Jerry O'Shea many generations ago.

Tune of the Day: Study in E major by Berbiguier

This Allegro in E major is the fourteenth étude from 18 exercices pour la flûte traversière by French Romantic composer Benoit Tranquille Berbiguier.

Tune of the Day: Soave by Telemann

This is the first movement of the first of Georg Philipp Telemann's Sonatas without Bass for Two Transverse Flutes, or Two Violins, or Two Recorders, although in some editions this particular sonata is referred to as Sonata No. 2. This first movement is marked “Soave” (pronounced So-ah-ve), which is Italian for sweet, soft, gentle.

Tune of the Day: Un bel dì vedremo

Madama Butterfly is a famous opera in three acts (originally two) by Italian composer Giacomo Puccini. It is set in Nagasaki, Japan, in 1904. According to some scholars, the opera was based on events that actually occurred in Nagasaki in the early 1890s.

Pinkerton, a U.S. Naval Officer, marries Cio-Cio-San (aka Madama Butterfly), a young geisha, in a ceremony she takes more seriously than he. One day, Pinkerton finds that he has been deployed and must do a tour of duty. On the last morning he is with Butterfly he promises her that he will return with roses, when the robin builds his nest again.

At the beginning of Act 2, three years have passed, but Cio-Cio-San still refuses to believe that Pinkerton has abandoned her. She says that, “un bel dì” (“one beautiful day”), they will see a puff of smoke on the far horizon. Then a ship will appear and enter the harbor. She will not go down to meet him but will wait on the hill for him to come. After a long time, she will see in the far distance a man beginning the walk out of the city and up the hill. When he arrives, he will call “Butterfly” from a distance, but she will not answer, partly for fun and partly not to die from the excitement of the first meeting. Then he will speak the names he used to call her: “Little one. Dear wife. Orange blossom.”

Tune of the Day: The Ranting Rake

The earliest appearance of this jig is in the second volume of London publisher Smollet Holden's Collection of Favorite Irish Airs (1818), under the title “The Rakes of Irishmen”. It was later printed in the publications of flute player John Clinton and violinist Richard M. Levey, both born in Ireland but both of whom had successful careers in England on the concert stage, largely playing classical music.

Tune of the Day: Study in D major by Andersen

Here is another étude by Joachim Andersen. This 12/8-time Larghetto in D major is study No. 5 from Twenty-Four Etudes for Flute, Op. 33.