Monday 15 January 2018
Tune of the Day: Ah ! Quel plaisir d'être soldat
from “La dame blanche”, arranged for two fllutes
This air (whose first verse translates as “Ah! What a pleasure to be a soldier!”) is sung by Georges, a young English officer, in Act I of François-Adrien Boieldieu's 1825 opera La dame blanche (The White Lady). Boieldieu, an opera composer of the Classical Era, is often called “the French Mozart”.
The present arrangement for two flutes is taken from Blake's Young Flutist's Magazine, published in 1833.