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Tune of the Day: Air à l'Italien

In the Ouverture-Suite in A minor, TWV 55:a2 Telemann is revealed once more as a master of the “mixed taste”: the suite contains a pair of French minuets, two passepieds from Brittany, a Polish polonaise, and this “Air in the Italian style”, thus enhancing Telemann's pan-European reputation for inventive use of the orchestra in a form to which he was particularly attached.

The fourth movement from the suite is titled “Air à l’Italien”, although a more correct French spelling would be “Air à l'Italienne”. (Also, this is sometimes referred to as the third movement, because the two “Les Plaisirs” preceding it may be considered as a single movement.) This “Air” is a baroque operatic aria in Italian da capo form, as found in Handel: a cantabile first part followed by a contrasting virtuoso middle section.

Tune of the Day: The Maids of Ballinacarty

This jig is taken from Francis O'Neill's collection Dance Music of Ireland, published in Chicago in 1907. Fiddler John Carey, a native of Limerick, is given as the source for the tune. In his later book Irish Folk Music, O'Neill states that the tune was previously “unpublished and new to us”.

Ballinascarty, also known as Ballinascarthy, is a village in County Cork, in the south-west of Ireland.

Tune of the Day: Study in C major by Gariboldi

Here is another very simple étude from Giuseppe Gariboldi's collection of 30 Etudes faciles et progressives. Strive to play it perfectly, paying close attention to dynamics and to the quality of your tone.

Tune of the Day: Voi, che sapete

“Voi, che sapete che cosa è amor” (“You ladies who know what love is, is it what I'm suffering from?”) is one of the most popular arias from Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro. It is performed by Cherubino, Count Almaviva's young page, who is about to be sent off to the army because the Count finds him a nuisance. When Cherubino appears before the Countess and her maid Susanna in Act II to tell them his fate, this aria is sung at the request of Susanna for a love song.

Tune of the Day: With Pleasure

Written in 1912, “With Pleasure” was Sousa's first, and one of his few, compositions in the new Ragtime style. It was dedicated to the members of the “Huntingdon Valley Country Club” of Philadelphia, of which the composer was an active member.

Several years later he used the piece as one movement of a suite, which he called, “The American Girl”. Later, when Sousa would program this work, he would sometimes list it by its subtitle “Dance Hilarious”. This fun, pleasant venture into Ragtime has entertained audiences at band concerts for over 80 years.

Tune of the Day: The Foot of the Mountain

This jig is taken from Francis O'Neill's collection Dance Music of Ireland, published in Chicago in 1907. In his later book Irish Folk Music, O'Neill states that the tune was previously “unpublished and new to us”.

Tune of the Day: Study in D-sharp minor by Andersen

Here is another étude by Danish flutist Joachim Andersen. This melancholic Lento in D# minor is study No. 14 from his Twenty-Four Etudes for Flute, Op. 33.