Free Flute Sheet Music

Tune of the Day: Intermezzo by Paul Merkus

Today's piece was kindly contributed to our collection by its composer, Paul Merkus from the Netherlands. It was originally written for piano solo in 1998.

The piece opens with a tranquil low-register musing that, after 16 bars, blossoms into a higher register and builds to a climax with a somewhat freer accompaniment. After this climax, the opening theme concludes. The interlude of this “Intermezzo” is a simple melody in the major mode that flows peacefully along with a quiet accompaniment of broken chords in the left hand. After a mysterious transition back to the minor key, the tranquility culminates in the exciting chorale in the piano. The whole then lightens somewhat when the flute comes back with a fantasy of scale figures, culminating in the piece's apotheosis: a grand conclusion with a reprise of the opening theme, but now in a maestoso style.

Tune of the Day: The Hollyford Jig

This jig appears to be unique to Chicago Police Captain Francis O'Neill's collection The Dance Music of Ireland, published in 1907. Hollyford is a small village in County Tipperary, Ireland.

Tune of the Day: Study in E-flat major by Gariboldi

This is étude No. 15 from Italian Romantic composer Giuseppe Gariboldi's collection of 30 Etudes faciles et progressives.

Tune of the Day: La Mijaurée

This sarabande is the fifth duet in D major from Joseph Bodin de Boismortier's 55 Easy Pieces, Op. 22. “Mijaurée” is a dialectal term from western France, used to indicate a pretentious woman.

Tune of the Day: Waves of the Danube

This waltz was composed by Romanian military band leader and composer Iosif Ivanovici, and is one of the most famous Romanian tunes in the world. The piece was first published in Bucharest in 1880; a few years later, composer Emile Waldteufel made an orchestration of the song, which was performed for the first time at the 1889 Paris Exposition, and took the audience by storm.

In the United States, “Waves of the Danube” became known only half a century later, when Al Jolson and Saul Chaplin published it in 1946 under the name of “The Anniversary Song” (“Oh, how we danced on the night we were wed”). Recorded by Al Jolson, the song first reached the Billboard magazine charts in February 1947 and lasted 14 weeks on the chart, peaking at #2.

Tune of the Day: The Drogheda Weavers

This lively jig is taken from Francis O'Neill's collection The Dance Music of Ireland, published in Chicago in 1907. In his 1913 book Irish Minstrels and Musicians, O'Neill remarks that there was a special dance performed to this tune.

Drogheda is a Gaelic word for “bridge by a ford”, and is the name of a port town in County Louth, about 30 miles north of Dublin by the River Boyne.

Tune of the Day: Teasing

This étude is taken from Ernesto Köhler's 25 Romantic Studies, Op. 66. Make sure not to insist on the eighth-notes that come after a triplet, and try to keep the grace notes as short as possible.

Thanks to Shaoyi for suggesting this piece!