Free Flute Sheet Music

Tune of the Day: Will You Come Down to Limerick?

In Irish Folk Music: A Fascinating Hobby, early-20th-century Chicago-based collector Francis O'Neill remarks:

An uncommonly fine tune of this class [i.e. slip jig], in three strains, obtained from John Ennis, is “Will You Come Down to Limerick?” Simpler versions are known to old-time musicians of Munster and Connacht, and in Chicago. Ennis had no monopoly of it, for it was well known to Delaney, Early, and McFadden. As an old-time Slip Jig it seems to have been called “The Munster Gimlet,” a singularly inapt title; but when it came into vogue by its song name, we are unable to say.

John Ennis was a Chicago Police patrolman, piper and flute player, originally from County Kildare, Ireland.

One of the earliest appearances of the tune is found in the second volume James S. Kerr's Merry Melodies, published in Glasgow around 1880.

Tune of the Day: Study by Karg-Elert

Today we propose the twenty-second étude from Sigfried Karg-Elert's 30 Caprices: a “Gradus ad Parnassum” of the modern technique for flute solo.

Tune of the Day: Duet in D major by Hugues

This is the very first duet from La scuola del flauto (The School of the Flute) by Italian composer and arranger Luigi Hugues.

Thanks to Paolo for contributing this piece!

Tune of the Day: Le rossignol en amour

François Couperin was a French composer, organist and harpsichordist of the Baroque period. He was known as Couperin le Grand (“Couperin the Great”) to distinguish him from other members of the musically talented Couperin family.

Couperin's harpsichord music is the dominant portion of his output, and one of the most impressive keyboard legacies in Western music. The individual pieces are grouped into 27 ordres, a term Couperin coined, apparently to distinguish them from the older suites. “Le rossignol en amour” (literally, “The Nightingale in Love”) is taken from the XIV ordre, and is an excellent piece to play on the flute, as the Composer himself wrote:

It is not necessary to adhere too precisely to the beat in the Double above; one must sacrifice everything to appropriate expression, to the clean execution of the passagework, and to softening the accents marked by the mordents. This “Rossignol” can be performed with the greatest possible success on the flute, when it is well played.

Tune of the Day: Tea in the Morning

This slip jig is taken from Francis O'Neill's collection Dance Music of Ireland (Chicago, 1907), although it had appeared in other publications as early as 1864. O'Neill obtained the tune from Irish collector Patrick Weston Joyce, who had noted it in 1853 from James Buckley, a Limerick piper.

Tune of the Day: The Dove

Today we propose étude No. 20 from Italian flutist and composer Ernesto Köhler's 25 Romantic Studies, Op. 66.

Tune of the Day: Allegro by Scherer

This is the third movement of a Sonata in G for three flutes written by the 18th-century German composer Johann Scherer.