This study in double tonguing is the very last piece of Italian Romantic composer Giuseppe Gariboldi's collection of 30 Etudes faciles et progressives.
This tune appears to be unique to Francis O'Neill's early-20th-century collections Music of Ireland (1903) and The Dance Music of Ireland (1907), both published in Chicago. O'Neill's source was Chicago police patrolman, piper and flute player John Ennis, originally from County Kildare. Ennis had it from a Chicago session, a “pet tune” of a nameless player who was reluctant to allow it to be collected.
Composed in 1900, the Serenata “Rimpianto” (literally, “Regret”) is the only work Enrico Toselli is remembered for, despite his having written many other songs, as well as tone poems and operettas. It is also one of his earliest works, composed when he was only seventeen. The song was so popular, Toselli himself made an arrangement for violin and piano. Arrangements for almost every other instrument and ensemble have been made over the years as well.
The song is one of those typical turn-of-the-century pieces, very sentimental and light on musical complexity, that would sound emotionally impressive when performed by concert artists, but would also be easily performed at home by amateurs.
Here is another duet in E minor from the 55 Easy Pieces by Baroque composer Joseph Bodin de Boismortier. The title “La Champenoise” refers to the French province of Champagne, now best known for the sparkling white wine that bears its name.
This blazingly fast 4/8-time moto perpetuo is the fourteenth étude from Sigfried Karg-Elert's 30 Caprices: a “Gradus ad Parnassum” of the modern technique for flute solo. It is marked “Il più presto possibile”, which literally means “As fast as possible”!
This jig is taken from Francis O'Neill's collection Music of Ireland, published in 1903. O'Neill's source was Chicago fiddler, dancer and police patrolman Timothy Dillon, originally from County Kerry in western Ireland.
Originally written for violin and piano, this well-known “Cantabile” in D major seems to have been composed not for public use but rather for the private enjoyment of Paganini and his circle. Here we find the composer's virtuoso fireworks tamed, his bag of tricks closed. Far removed from the pyrotechnic “Caprices”, the Cantabile is instead a gorgeous Italian vocalise.
Thanks to Mauro from Italy for suggesting this piece!
Today's piece is the central air from Johann Sebastian Bach's second French Suite for harpsichord, composed around 1722. Originally in C minor, this movement has been transposed to F minor to better fit the range of the flute.
Many thanks to Joyce Kai for contributing this arrangement!
This étude in D minor is taken from the second book of Twenty Easy Melodic Progressive Studies by Italian composer Ernesto Köhler.
This tune is taken from Francis O'Neill's collection Music of Ireland, published in Chicago in 1903. It is a variation on an older tune, “Jackson's Coggie in the Morning”, which had appeared in O'Farrell's Pocket Companion for the Irish or Union Pipes around 1805.
Theobald Boehm, the inventor who perfected the modern Western concert flute and its improved fingering system, was also a virtuoso flutist as well as a celebrated composer for the instrument. This “Souvenir of the Alps”, written in 1852, is the fifth of a set of six such pieces.
This is duet No. 3 from the first volume of Twenty Easy Melodic Progressive Studies by Italian Romantic composer Ernesto Köhler. It is marked con tristezza, which means “with sadness”, and a sense of sadness is indeed conveyed by the use of a minor key.
This étude in articulation is the eleventh piece from Sigfried Karg-Elert's 30 Caprices: a “Gradus ad Parnassum” of the modern technique for flute solo.
This minor-mode jig is taken from Chicago Police captain Francis O'Neill's collection The Dance Music of Ireland, published in 1907.