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This is the second movement of a sonata in A minor for two flutes by the German Baroque composer and music theorist Johann Mattheson. It was published in Amsterdam in 1708.
Anna Magdalena Bach, Johann Sebastian's wife, was presented with the famous Notebook by her husband in 1725. He started her out with a fine gift of two partitas, and left the rest blank for her to collect compositions herself. The Musette in D major, BWV Anh. 126, is one of those collected compositions. Because all the entries are anonymous, it is impossible to know for certain whether or not J.S. Bach actually composed this brief, simple musette. Certain things about it, most notably its somewhat boisterous mood, suggest the work of one of Johann Sebastian's sons. The boisterousness chiefly manifests itself in witty alternations between broken octave bass accompaniment and unison in the statement of the perky theme, and some tricky, less-than-completely sweet harmonies in the contrasting material.
In this transcription for the modern C flute we kept the original key of D major, but we had to raise the last note by an octave.
The earliest appearance of this jig is found in Francis O'Neill's collection Music of Ireland (Chicago, 1903), but the tune is related to an English/Scottish melody known as “The Major”, dating back to the mid-18th century.
Mooncoin is a town in County Kilkenny in the southeast of Ireland, an area famous in the 19th century and early 20th century for its pipers. The town's curious name derives from an anglicized version of the Irish “Móin Choinn”, which means “Coyne's Bogland”.
This easy study in triplets is taken from Giuseppe Gariboldi's Vingt petites études, or Twenty Studies. Play this piece evenly, and mind your articulation and phrasing.
According to Greek mythology, Orpheus was “the father of songs”: with his music and singing, he could charm birds, fish and wild beasts, coax the trees and rocks into dance, and even divert the course of rivers.
When his wife Eurydice died of a snake bite, Orpheus played such sad songs and sang so mournfully that all the nymphs and gods wept. On their advice, Orpheus traveled to the underworld and by his music softened the hearts of Hades and Persephone (he was the only person ever to do so), who agreed to allow Eurydice to return with him to earth on one condition: he should walk in front of her and not look back until they both had reached the upper world. He set off with Eurydice following and in his anxiety as soon as he reached the upper world he turned to look at her, forgetting that both needed to be in the upper world, and she vanished for the second time.
It is then that Orpheus intones the lament, “Che farò senza Euridice?” (“What will I do without Eurydice?”), a sublime aria which has truly become immortal.
This gavotte is the fourth movement of the fourth of the six Op. 7 flute sonatas with bass accompaniment by French flutist and composer Jean-Daniel Braun, published in Paris in 1736.
This jig was first printed by Nathaniel Gow in his Fifth Collection of Strathspeys, Reels, etc. (Edinburgh, 1809), where it is identified as “Irish”, although the fourth part is attributed to “Mr. Sharpe of Hoddam”, a Perthshire gentleman-amateur violinist.
The melody was notably popularized by Irish fiddle master Michael Coleman, who recorded it on Columbia records in 1921.