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The earliest appearance of this tune is in Church of Ireland cleric James Goodman's mid-19th-century manuscripts. Goodman was an uilleann piper who collected melodies locally in County Cork as well as elsewhere in Munster.
Tantalus was a Greek mythological figure, most famous for his eternal punishment: to stand in a pool of water beneath a fruit tree with low branches, with the fruit ever eluding his grasp, and the water always receding before he could take a drink.
This study presents two difficulties. The first difficulty, of course, concerns the fingers, since the piece must be played at a steady tempo. The second lies in the intonation of the interval C#-E, as C# tends to be too sharp and E tends to be a little flat.
Composed in 1792, Beethoven's Flute Duo in G major was not published during the composer's lifetime, but the autograph has survived. The dedication “for friend Degenharth” (a lawyer amongst Beethoven's close circle of friends) leaves open whether the work was commissioned or a gift. Anyway, neither flute part of this charming duet is technically very demanding, and is therefore well-suited as sight-reading material.
Thanks to Lauren for suggesting this piece!
Martha, oder Der Markt zu Richmond (Martha, or The Market at Richmond) is a “romantic comic” opera in four acts by German composer Friedrich von Flotow. It was first performed in Vienna in 1847.
The opera is set in 18th-century England, during the reign of Queen Anne, and the story is that of a beauty of high rank, Lady Harriet, who disguises herself as a peasant, calls herself Martha, and, with her maid Nancy, similarly disguised, joins a crowd of girls going to the hiring fair at Richmond. Two young farmers, Plunkett and Lyonel, engage Martha and her companion for twelve months. The two ladies however do not like their situation, and escape the same night. The two farmers, on the other hand, had fallen desperately in love with the girls.
The aria “Ach! so fromm” is taken from Act three, where Lyonel sees “Martha” again with the ladies-in-waiting for Queen Anne. He is struck again by her beauty, and grieves that he will probably never be with her again.
Despite being the most famous original aria from the opera, this aria was not originally written for Martha, but for Flotow's L'âme en peine. It was first interpolated into Martha in 1865, at the first Paris production. It is also often sung in its Italian translation “M'appari tutt'amor” (“She appeared to me full of love”).
This jig is found in the Stanford/Petrie manuscript The Complete Collection of Irish Music (London, 1902), under the title “The Parish Girl”. Francis O'Neill also included the same melody as “The Blarney Pilgrim” in his collection Music of Ireland (Chicago, 1903).
“The Blarney Pilgrim” was one of the tunes played by the band in the scene of the Irish dancers in steerage in the 1997 blockbuster film Titanic.
The title is a reference to the Blarney Stone, a block of limestone built into the battlements of Blarney Castle, located near Cork City, Ireland. According to legend, kissing the stone endows the kisser with the gift of the gab (great eloquence or skill at flattery). Interestingly, since the stone is embedded in the wall of the castle, it can only be reached by being dangled out of a window.
This is the eight étude from 18 exercices pour la flûte traversière by French Romantic composer Benoit Tranquille Berbiguier.
This duettino (short duet) is taken from act 3 of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera The Marriage of Figaro. In the opera, Countess Almaviva dictates to Susanna a love letter to Almaviva's husband, Count Almaviva, in a plot to expose his infidelity.
This arrangement for flute duet is from a German edition which was published in Bonn in 1799, only 13 years after 1784, when Le nozze di Figaro was composed.