This common-time Moderato in B minor is the sixteenth étude from 18 exercices pour la flûte traversière by French Romantic composer Benoit Tranquille Berbiguier.
This jig is taken from George Petrie's The Complete Collection of Irish Music, published in London in 1905, where it is given as “A Cork jig. From P. Carew's MS”. Researcher Nicholas Carolan of the Irish Traditional Music Archive records that P. Carew (or, as collector William Forde gave his name, Paddy Carey) was a musically literate professional uilleann piper living in Lag Lane, St Finbarre's parish, Cork, in the mid-1840s.
Published in 1847, the Trois Valses (“Three Waltzes”), Op. 64 were the last set of such works to be published during Chopin's lifetime, and were among the very last works sketched by his prodigious pen. Each of the three is among the shortest of his entries in the waltz form, making them entirely unsuitable for effective use in the ballroom.
The “Minute Waltz” is the most famous of Chopin's waltzes, and ranks among the best-loved pieces in the entire classical repertoire. Its sprightly mood and kinetic energy belie the composer's personal situation at the time of composition: his health was in serious decline, and his relationship with novelist Aurore Dupin Dudevant (who wrote under the pseudonym of George Sand) was falling apart.
The Minute Waltz is also known as the “Dog Waltz” (or “Petit chien”), because for some it suggests the image of a dog chasing its tail, and legend has it that the waltz was inspired by Chopin's own pet.
The piece is used as the theme tune to the BBC radio show Just a Minute; despite its nickname, however, a typical performance of the piece lasts between one and a half and two and a half minutes. This is because Chopin's publisher, who coined the nickname, intended the “minute” to simply mean “small”.
At the beginning of Act II of Mozart's famous opera The Magic Flute, the council of priests of Isis and Osiris, headed by Sarastro, enters to the sound of this slow, solemn march. Mozart apparently completed this piece (and the overture to the opera) only two days before the work was premiered on September 30, 1791.
This easy étude in C major is taken from the second book of Twenty Easy Melodic Progressive Studies by Italian composer Ernesto Köhler.
Thanks to Bruno for contributing this piece!
This jig is taken from Francis O'Neill's collection Dance Music of Ireland, published in Chicago in 1907. It had previously appeared in Petrie's Complete Collection of Irish Music (London, 1905), where it is said to be a Cork jig obtained from Paddy Carew's mid-19th-century manuscript.
Written in 1901, “The Easy Winners” is one of Scott Joplin's most popular works. Quite unusually for Joplin, he chose to publish the piece himself. Why his usual publisher, John Stark, didn't publish the rag is not known for certain.
In any case, many commentators believe “The Easy Winners”, which is something of a celebration of the sporting world, particularly horse racing, to be one of Joplin's greatest rags. Certainly it was one of his most popular right from the beginning; it was one of only four Joplin pieces to be recorded before 1940.
Today's piece is the third movement of Georg Philipp Telemann's Sonatas without Bass for Two Transverse Flutes, or Two Violins, or Two Recorders. It is a common-time Andante in E minor.
This lively study is the sixth piece from French flutist Johannes Donjon's Huit Études de Salon (“Eight Parlour Studies”) for solo flute.
Thanks to Jane for suggesting this piece!
There are many traditional Irish tunes known under the title “The Man in the Moon”. This particular one is taken from Francis O'Neill's Dance Music of Ireland, published in Chicago in 1907.
Les millions d'Arlequin (or Harlequinade) is a ballet in two acts with libretto and choreography by Marius Petipa and music by Italian composer Riccardo Drigo. It was first presented in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1900.
Drigo's score spawned the popular salon repertory piece known as the “Serenade”, which the composer later rewrote as a song called “Notturno d'amore” for the Italian tenor Beniamino Gigli. The piece has since been arranged for every conceivable instrument, particularly the violin and piano.
The title of this aria literally means “I have lost it, woe is me!”. It is taken from the very beginning of Act IV of Mozart's opera Le nozze di Figaro, and is sung by Barbarina, Susanna's cousin. Terribly upset, Barbarina is searching the garden for something that she has lost. When Figaro arrives with his mother Marcellina and asks the weeping girl what's wrong, she replies that she has lost the pin that the Count gave her to deliver to Susanna as a token of their tryst. Angry, but pretending that he already knows all about it, he plucks a pin from Marcellina's dress and gives it to Barbarina, who goes off to give it to Susanna. Figaro collapses into his mother's arms, then rage overtakes him as he vows to avenge all deceived husbands.
Here is another étude by Joachim Andersen. This 3/4-time Adagio in B minor is study No. 6 from Twenty-Four Etudes for Flute, Op. 33. It will let you revise many different rhythmic patterns.
This jig first appeared in Francis O'Neill's collection Dance Music of Ireland, published in Chicago in 1907. It is however related by its first strain to another tune, similarly known as “Sally McGee”, which was published in O'Farrell's Collection of National Irish Music for the Union Pipes about a century earlier.
Alexander Reinagle was born in Portsmouth, England, but in 1786, at the age of 30, he settled in New York and began teaching music. He soon moved to Philadelphia, where he revitalized concert music and became a popular musician. Reinagle demonstrated his patriotism for his adopted country by composing several works based on American scenes and patriots. He is even thought to have taught George Washington's adopted daughter.
In 1802 Reinagle wrote “Madison's March” to honor of James Madison, then Secretary of State. In 1809, Madison became the fourth president of the United States, and he was the first president to host an official inaugural ball. When he and his wife, Dolley, entered the ballroom filled with over 400 guests, the band played “President Madison's March”.
Thanks to Maddie for suggesting this piece!
Here is the fourth and last movement of Georg Philipp Telemann's first Sonata without Bass for Two Transverse Flutes, or Two Violins, or Two Recorders. This piece is a 12/8-time binary-form Allegro in G major, featuring some wide interval leaps.
This is the last étude from 18 exercices pour la flûte traversière by French Romantic composer Benoit Tranquille Berbiguier. The whole collection is now available for download!
This jig appears to be unique to Chicago Police Captain Francis O'Neill's collection Dance Music of Ireland, published in 1907.
The original sonatas for recorder of G.F. Handel belong to the standard repertoire for each flute player. The Recorder Sonata in A minor, Op. 1, No. 4, HWV 362, is one of the relatively few Opus 1 pieces that exist in just one version: many of the other sonatas are known under a number of different forms, which often causes great confusion.
About this sonata and its opening Larghetto, recorder player Pamela Thorby declared: “The A minor sonata is the most overtly dramatic of the six recorder sonatas. Imagine if you will the first movement as the tortured agonies of a would-be heroine as she laments upon the deceit of her lover. She weeps, the dotted bass line signifying the beat of a heavy and exhausted heart.” (Handel Recorder Sonatas on LINN Records, Pamela Thorby, recorder and Richard Egarr, harpsichord.)
This aria is sung by Monostatos, Sarastro's moorish slave, in Act II of Mozart's famous opera Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute). Monostatos approaches Pamina while she is sleeping in the garden, and wishes that they could be together, but knows that he could never have her.
All feel the joy of love,
Bill and coo, flirt, snuggle, and kiss,
And I am supposed to avoid love,
Because I am ugly.
Have I, then, been given no heart?
I am also fond of girls,
Always to live without a woman
Would truly be the blaze of hell!
This easy common-time étude in D major is taken from the second book of Twenty Easy Melodic Progressive Studies by Italian composer Ernesto Köhler.
This tune first appeared, without a title, in the large mid-19th-century music manuscript collection of County Cork cleric and uilleann piper James Goodman. As “The Humors of Glynn”, it was included in Francis O'Neill's Dance Music of Ireland (Chicago, 1907).
The tune was an especial favorite with the Scots national poet Robert Burns, who used it for his song “Their groves o' sweet myrtle let foreign lands reckon”.
There is a small village called Glynn in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. However, according to folklorist Peter Kennedy, the title of this jig is generally thought to refer to An Gleann (often called Glin or Glen), a village in County Limerick on the south shore of the river Shannon, almost opposite Knock.
In 1876, following incidents in which Turkish soldiers killed a large number of Christian Slavs who were rebelling against the Ottoman Empire, Serbia declared war on Turkey. Many Russians sympathized with those they considered to be their fellow Slavs and Orthodox Christians and sent volunteer soldiers and aid to assist the Kingdom of Serbia. In the ensuing struggle the Serbian army was quickly defeated by the Turks.
Nikolai Rubinstein, a close friend of Tchaikovsky, asked him to compose a piece for a concert benefiting the wounded Russian volunteers. In a burst of patriotism, Tchaikovsky composed and orchestrated what was first known as the Serbo-Russian March (later to be known as Marche Slave) in only five days. The piece was premiered in Moscow in November 1876 to a warm reception.
The march is highly programmatic in its form and organization. The first section describes the oppression of the Serbians by the Turkish. It uses two Serbian folk songs. The first, which is known as “Come my dearest, why so sad this morning?”, is played, as Tchaikovsky directs, "at the speed of a funeral march". The second folk song is more optimistic in character. An episode follows, describing the atrocities in the Balkans, in which Tchaikovsky uses his mastery of the orchestra to build a tremendous climax, at the height of which the first folk song returns, fortissimo on the trumpets like a plangent cry for help.
The piece shares a few refrains with the 1812 Overture, with which it is frequently paired in performance; however, the Slavonic March is a more enthusiastically patriotic composition than the 1812 Overture.
Come ye Sons of Art is one of Henry Purcell's most elaborate, most important and most magnificent works. It was written in 1694 as a birthday ode for Queen Mary II of England, using a text by Irish poet Nahum Tate.
Come, ye Sons of Art, come away,
Tune all your voices and instruments play
To celebrate this triumphant day.
Thanks to Erika for suggesting this piece!
Here is another étude by Danish flutist Joachim Andersen. This Andante sostenuto in E major is study No. 9 from his Twenty-Four Etudes for Flute, Op. 33.
This melody is found in the manuscripts of several 19th-century music collectors, including George Petrie, John Edward Pigot, and Henry Hudson. George Petrie noted it was “A Connemara tune”.
The tune was usually recorded as “An Púca”, or “The Pooca”, referring to a mythical creature of Celtic and English folklore, a shapeshifter considered to be bringer of both good and bad fortune. The title “The Fairy Jig” appears to be due to Chicago Police officer and music collector Francis O'Neill.
Alexander Borodin wrote his String Quartet No. 2 very quickly during August 1881. The Russian composer dedicated it to his wife Ekaterina, and it was written as an evocation of when they met and fell in love 20 years earlier.
The main theme of the third movement of this quartet, the Nocturne, is often performed in string orchestra arrangements, and probably constitutes Borodin's most famous piece of music. In the original score, the theme is initially introduced by the cello (which represents the composer, an amateur player himself), and soon passes to the first violin (which portrays Ekaterina).
This long, tender melody also appears in the 1953 musical Kismet, with the title “And This is My Beloved”. The adaptation was done by Robert Wright and George Forrest, who really specialized in turning melodies from classical music into film scores and popular songs.
Everybody knows Pachelbel's Canon, but the Gigue that originally accompanied it never received the same amount of popularity, even though it is a lively and energetic dance. Just like the Canon, Pachelbel composed it near the end of the 17th century, but it remained forgotten for centuries and was rediscovered only in the 20th century.
Thanks to Jeffrey for suggesting this piece!
This easy étude in A minor and F major is taken from the second book of Twenty Easy Melodic Progressive Studies by Italian composer Ernesto Köhler.
This tune appears to be unique to Francis O'Neill's collection The Dance Music Of Ireland, published in Chicago in 1907. It is however related to an older Irish tune with an almost identical title, “Old Hag You Have Killed Me”.