Here is another duet from 55 Easy Pieces by French Baroque composer Joseph Bodin de Boismortier'. This is a bourrée, so it should be played as if to accompany a quick double-time dance.
This is étude No. 16 from Italian Romantic composer Giuseppe Gariboldi's collection of 30 Etudes faciles et progressives.
This jig is taken from Francis O'Neill's collection The Dance Music of Ireland, published in 1907. O'Neill obtained this version of the tune from the manuscripts of Timothy Downing, a gentleman farmer of Tralibane, County Cork, who taught O'Neill the rudiments of the flute when the latter was a boy during the 1860s.
At one time, three halfpence a day was referred to as the common wage for an ordinary laborer or soldier.
The B-minor sonata is the greatest and most difficult of Bach's flute works. Its historical significance, technical demands and timeless beauty, bring it to the forefront of his compositions and takes the rightful place as a staple in the solo flute literature.
The third movement of J.S. Bach's B-minor Sonata for Flute and Harpsichord is in two parts, beginning with a fugal presto that leads straight into a gigue-like section which is most notable for its witty syncopations and technical demands.
This is duet No. 5 from the first volume of Twenty Easy Melodic Progressive Studies by Ernesto Köhler. As for all duets of the collection, the second flute part is meant to be played by the teacher.
Thanks to Bruno for contributing this piece!
This is étude No. 8 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 play the piece wittily but clearly.
This jig appears to be unique to Chicago Police Captain Francis O'Neill's collection The Dance Music of Ireland, published in 1907.
Debussy wrote “La plus que lente” for solo piano in 1910. The title of this waltz may be translated as "The Even Slower Waltz" or, more literally, "The More Than Slow". Despite its title, “La plus que lente” was not meant to be played slowly: lente, in this context, refers to the valse lente genre that Debussy attempted to emulate. Typical of Debussy's caustic approach to naming his compositions, it represented his reaction to the vast influence of the slow waltz in France's social atmospheres.
“La plus que lente” is marked “Molto rubato con morbidezza”, indicating Debussy's encouragement of a very flexible tempo. Molto rubato (literally, “very stolen”) allows the player great rhythmic freedom, while con morbidezza means “softly”, “tenderly”.
The original version of this piece was scored in G-flat major (with six flats in the key signature), but flutists usually play it transposed to G major, since this key better fits the playing range of the flute... not to mention that it's way easier to read!
This is the last duet in D major from the 55 Easy Pieces by Baroque composer Joseph Bodin de Boismortier. The French word faineant indicates an irresponsible or lazy person.
Thanks to Paolo for contributing this piece!
This is the last étude from Ernesto Köhler's 25 Romantic Studies, Op. 66. It consists of a lively “Allegro vivo” in E major and a melancholic Andantino in A minor.
This single jig is taken from Francis O'Neill's collection Music of Ireland, published in Chicago in 1903. The tune has been employed for the English country dance “Jack's Health” since at least the early 1970s. As a result, it is sometimes erroneously assumed to be an old English dance tune.
Today we have a new contribution from our guest composer from the Netherlands, Paul Merkus. This piece was originally written in 1994 for solo piano, and has now been arranged for flute and piano.
The piece starts with an intro in the low register, followed by a second theme with Mozartian embellishments, accompanied by an Alberti bass.
After a quiet interlude (in two positions), the actual “LeapFrog” theme follows. Here, I have the image of a frog leaping from one leaf of water lily to another: “a frog that leaps,” which, through a pun, leads to the title “LeapFrog.”
Finally, this short piece ends with a buildup towards to final eight bars in maestoso style.
Today's piece is duet No. 6 from the first volume of Ernesto Köhler's Twenty Easy Melodic Progressive Studies.
Thanks to Bruno for contributing this piece!
This is étude No. 17 from Italian Romantic composer Giuseppe Gariboldi's collection of 30 Etudes faciles et progressives.
The first appearance of this jig is found in Francis O'Neill's celebrated collection Music of Ireland, published in Chicago in 1903. O'Neill obtained the tune form Chicago police patrolman, piper and flute player John Ennis, originally from County Kildare, Ireland.
This march is one of the most famous melodies of the ballet. The piece is simply called “March”, or “Marche” in French. However, instead of calling it, “The March from The Nutcracker”, most take the more direct route of saying, “The Nutcracker March”, or even “The March of the Nutcracker”.
Those vaguely familiar with the story of The Nutcracker may be surprised to learn that this is not actually a dance performed by the Nutcracker as he leads the toy soldiers to victory over the Mouse King. Instead, the march appears early in the first act, played during the lively party scene, which includes plenty of dancing, games and merriment. The cheerful rhythm of the piece helps to create a feeling of celebration among the holiday partygoers.
Today we propose an arrangement for two flutes of the traditional Hannukah song “I Have a Little Dreidel”, kindly contributed to our collection by Anne McKennon.
A version of this piece for flute and piano is also available.
This étude in A major is taken from the second book of Twenty Easy Melodic Progressive Studies by Italian composer Ernesto Köhler.
This jig appears to be unique to Francis O'Neill's collection The Dance Music Of Ireland, published in Chicago in 1907. It is part of an extended tune family including “Ask My Father” and “Oh! Hag You Have Killed Me”.
This is the tune to which “Away in a Manger” is most commonly set to in the United Kingdom. (In the US, the hymn is more often sung to the tune Mueller.) Originally titled “Cradle Song”, this tune was written by American musician William J. Kirkpatrick for the 1895 musical Around the World with Christmas. Kirkpatrick, like others before him, attributed the words of the hymn to Luther.
It seems that more than 40 different tunes have been written for “Away in a Manger”, and this multiplicity of settings can really become a source of confusion. There's even a story of a school teacher who had been teaching her children to sing the hymn to one tune, while the Sunday schools in her town were telling them to sing it to another. Both the day school and the Sunday school song books gave their tune as composed by Martin Luther. Which tune did Luther really write? Ironically, the answer is: neither!
Here is a new duet from the first volume of Ernesto Köhler's Forty Progressive Duets, Op. 55. This Andante in D major is made up of a very simple melody, accompanied by a series of arpeggios.
This is étude No. 18 from Italian Romantic composer Giuseppe Gariboldi's collection of 30 Etudes faciles et progressives. It focuses on the alternation of binary and ternary rhythms.
The earliest appearance of this tune is found in Edward Bunting's collection The Ancient Music of Ireland, published in Dublin in 1840. Bunting obtained the melody (which is described as “Very ancient”) from R. Stanton, Westport, County Mayo, in 1802.
Despite the mention of bells and Christmas in the title, “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” is as much an antiwar song as it is a Christmas song. In fact, the poetry of this renowned carol was crafted by the great American literary figure Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in the midst of the American Civil War. On Christmas Day in 1863, Longfellow wrote the familiar lines in response to the horror of the bloody fratricidal conflict in general and to the personal tragedy of his son, who was severely wounded in November 1862.
It was not until sometime after 1872 that the poem, which was originally titled “Christmas Bells”, was converted into a carol. The composer of the tune, organist John Baptiste Calkin, was the most famous of a family of accomplished English musicians. At first Calkin's melody was published with the 1848 American hymn “Fling Out the Banner! Let It Float” by George Washington Doane. Ironically, “Fling Out” was an old-fashioned militant missionary hymn which contrasted greatly in purpose and spirit from the more permanent partner of Calkin's music.
Although Calkin's melody, which is actually titled “Waltham”, is beautiful, at least three alternative tunes have been tried. Among these, the wafting melody by Johnny Marks (who is most noted for “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”) has become particularly popular. Marks' composition is now often used for modern recordings of the song, while Calkin's melody was notably featured in recordings by Elvis Presley, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Jimmie Rodgers.
This traditional English carol, also known as “The First Nowell”, is most likely from the 18th century. The now popular combination of tune and lyrics first appeared in print in a collection of Christmas carols published in 1833. The melody is unusual among English folk melodies in that it consists of one musical phrase repeated twice, followed by a variation on that phrase. It is thought to be a corruption of an earlier melody sung in a church gallery setting; because of its repetitive nature, it probably began as a descant to another melody, or possibly as parts of other tunes.
Here the word “Noel” (or “Nowell”) comes from the French Noël, meaning “Christmas”, from the Latin natalis, “birth”. It may also be from the Gaulish words noio or neu meaning “new”, and helle, meaning “light”, referring to the winter solstice (December 21), when sunlight begins overtaking darkness.
In the fixed structure of Bach's Cello Suites, the fourth movement of each suite is always a sarabande. This triple meter dance originated during the sixteenth century as a wildly exuberant dance song in Latin America, before becoming one of the most popular dances of the Baroque.
Initially a light, cheerful dance of moderately quick tempo, the sarabande went through many changes during the Baroque period. The late seventeenth-century form, used extensively in France and Germany, was much slower, more deliberate, and serious, with a heavy accent on the second pulse of the measure. Composers often provided heavy written-out embellishments for this slow sarabande.
The earliest appearance of this jig is found in Francis O'Neill's collection Music of Ireland, published in Chicago in 1903.
This piece was perhaps one of the most popular melodies in Europe of the fin de siècle, the last decades of the nineteenth century, often referred to as the Belle Epoque (literally, “Beautiful Era”). Massenet originally composed “Élégie” in 1866 for a piano cycle titled Dix pièces de genre. In 1872, he incorporated the piece into Les Erinnyes (The Furies), a play by Leconte de Lisle.
“Elégie” gained even greater renown as a song for voice and piano, set to a poem by Louis Gallet, with the title “O doux printemps d'autrefois” (“O sweet spring of days long ago“).
This binary-form, 2/4-time Vivace is the fourth and last movement of the fourth of Telemann's Sonates sans Basse à deux Flutes traverses, ou à deux Violons, ou à deux Flutes à bec, or “Sonatas without Bass for Two Transverse Flutes, or Two Violins, or Two Recorders”.
Thanks to Raquel for suggesting this piece!
Today we propose the first étude from Sigfried Karg-Elert's 30 Caprices: a “Gradus ad Parnassum” of the modern technique for flute solo.
This tune appears in Daniel Wright's Compleat Collection of Celebrated Country Dances (printed in London in 1740 by John Johnson), as well as in the 3rd edition of John Walsh's Second Book of the Compleat Country Dancing Master (London, 1735). A broadside ballad was set to the air, one version of which can be found in Thomas D'Urfey's Pills to Purge Melancholy (1707), under the title “The Town Gallant”.
Let us drink and be merry, dance, joke, and rejoice,
With claret and sherry, theorbo and voice;
The changeable world to our joy is unjust,
All treasure's uncertain, then down with your dust:
In frolicks dispose of your pounds, shillings and pence,
For we shall be nothing one hundred years hence.