Wednesday 1 September 2021
Tune of the Day: An Old Man Would Be Wooing
from “The Barber of Seville”, arranged for two flutes
This flute duet appears in Blake's Young Flutist's Magazine, published in 1833. It is an arrangement of a piece from a 1818 English-language adaptation of Rossini's The Barber of Seville by Sir Henry Rowley Bishop. The song appears to be based on an old Venetian air, “La biondina in gondoleta”, which at the time was often used to replace Rosina's “Contro un cor” at the beginning of Act II.