Free Flute Sheet Music

Tune of the Day: Marche Slave

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.

Tune of the Day: The Humors of Glynn

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.

Tune of the Day: Study in D major by Köhler

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.

Tune of the Day: Alles fühlt der Liebe Freuden

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!

Tune of the Day: Larghetto

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.)

Tune of the Day: The Red Rose

This jig appears to be unique to Chicago Police Captain Francis O'Neill's collection Dance Music of Ireland, published in 1907.

Tune of the Day: Study in F-sharp minor by Berbiguier

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!