This Allegro is the fourth and final movement of the fifth of the six Op. 7 flute sonatas with bass accompaniment by French flutist and composer Jean-Daniel Braun, published in Paris in 1736.
This is the fourth and last movement from the second of Telemann's Sonates sans Basse à deux Flutes traverses, ou à deux Violons, ou à deux Flutes à bec, or “Sonatas without Bass for Two Transverse Flutes, or Two Violins, or Two Recorders”. You should be aware that this sonata is sometimes referred to as Sonata No. 1. We have already posted the other three movements from the sonata, and you can find them here: Dolce, Allegro, Largo.
This easy étude in G major is taken from the first book of Twenty Easy Melodic Progressive Studies by Italian composer Ernesto Köhler.
Thanks to Bruno for contributing this piece!
This jig is taken from Francis O'Neill's The Dance Music of Ireland, published in Chicago in 1907. O'Neill states that the tune was “in some form known all throughout Munster. A strain remembered by from my mother's singing of it was added to Delaney's version, making a total of six in our printed setting.”
Frieze is a coarse woolen fabric with a rough surface. The title refers to clothing made from the material, once common in Ireland. However, the title is often rendered as “The Friar's Britches” due to the similarity of “frieze” and “friars” when spoken.
The Gymnopédies, published in Paris starting in 1888, are three piano compositions written by French composer and pianist Erik Satie. These short, atmospheric pieces are written in 3/4 time, with each sharing a common theme and structure. Collectively, the Gymnopédies are regarded as the precursors to modern ambient music. Though gentle, they are somewhat eccentric, and when composed they defied the classical tradition. For instance, the first few bars feature an alternating progression of two major seventh chords, the first on the subdominant, G, and the second on the tonic, D. This kind of harmony was almost entirely unknown at the time.
In the Act I finale of “The Magic Flute”, three boys lead the hero Tamino into a grove wherein three temples stand: in the center, the Temple of Wisdom; on the right, the Temple of Reason; on the left, the Temple of Nature. Singing a calm, stately trio they tell him some wise advice for his quest:
To your goal leads this path;
Therefore, listen to our lesson:
Be steadfast, patient, and remain silent.
This piece was arranged as a flute duet by the great German composer Bernhard Romberg.
Here is étude No. 14 from Italian flutist and composer Giuseppe Gariboldi's Twenty Studies, Op. 132. It is marked “scherzando”, an Italian term that literally means “joking”; therefore, this study should be played in a very brilliant style, and at a fast tempo.
The earliest known appearance of this jig is found in the large mid-19th century music manuscript collection of County Cork cleric and uilleann piper Canon James Goodman. Various different settings of the tune have since been published, at first mostly in Mixolydian mode (with C-naturals), but with later ones tending more and more to a plain major mode.
This Largo is the opening movement of the last of the six Op. 7 flute sonatas with bass accompaniment by French flutist and composer Jean-Daniel Braun, published in Paris in 1736.
It is believed that this traditional tune stems from a 15th century French processional for Franciscan nuns, but it may also have 8th century Gregorian origins. It is one of the most solemn Advent hymns.
The words were combined from various antiphons by an unknown author, possibly in the 12th century; they were subsequently translated from Latin to English by John M. Neale in the mid-19th century. Neale's original translation actually began, “Draw nigh, draw nigh, Emmanuel”.
The lyrics echo a number of prophetic themes. The title comes from Isaiah 7:14: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” Immanuel is Hebrew for “God with us.”
This 12/8-time étude in C major is taken from the first book of Twenty Easy Melodic Progressive Studies by Italian composer Ernesto Köhler.
Thanks to Bruno for contributing this piece!
This Irish jig first appears under the title “The Wink of Her Eye” in Ryan's Mammoth Collection, published in Boston in 1883. The title “Bold John O'Leary”, found in Francis O'Neill's Music of Ireland (Chicago, 1903), probably comes from an old ballad that had been set to the tune, as the appellation “bold” was traditionally reserved to outlaws.
Composer Gustav Holst lived in the English village of Cranham for a while, and it was there, in the house now called “Midwinter Cottage” that he wrote what is probably the best known tune for the Christmas carol “In the Bleak Midwinter” by Christina Rossetti. That's why the tune is called “Cranham”.
This version of the hymn has been recorded by a number of popular recording artists, including Julie Andrews, Allison Crowe and Sarah McLachlan, as well as by many choirs.
Another famous setting of the hymn was composed by Harold Darke in the early 20th century. The Darke version, with its beautiful and delicate organ accompaniment, has also gained popularity among choirs in recent years.
This Christmas carol dates from the 16th Century. It was originally performed in the English city of Coventry as part of a mystery play called The Pageant of the Shearmen and Tailors, which depicted the Christmas story as described in the Gospel of Matthew. The Coventry Carol, which is the only carol that has survived from this play, refers to the Massacre of the Innocents, in which Herod orders all male infants under the age of two in Bethlehem to be killed. That's why the lyrics of this haunting carol represent a mother's lament for her doomed child.
The carol is notable as a well-known example of a Picardy third (aka tierce de Picardie). This harmonic device consists in using a major chord of the tonic to conclude a minor-mode phrase. In other words, despite this tune being in G minor, it ends on a G major chord, with a B-natural instead of a B-flat.
This carol is traditionally sung a cappella, that is, without instrumental accompaniment. Thus, it makes a perfect piece for a flute ensemble.
Today's piece is étude No. 15 from Italian flutist and composer Giuseppe Gariboldi's Twenty Studies, Op. 132.
The earliest known appearance of this jig is found in R.M. Levey's First Collection of the Dance Music of Ireland, published in 1858.
Cavan is the name of a county (and of its county town) in the North-East of the Republic of Ireland, bordering Northern Ireland.
This beautiful Christmas carol, whose original title is “Cantique de Noël”, was composed by French composer Adolphe Charles Adam in 1847 to the poem “Minuit, chrétiens” (“Midnight, Christians”) by Placide Cappeau, a wine merchant and occasional writer of poetry. It is said that Cappeau was about to embark upon a business trip to Paris when the local parish priest asked him to write a Christmas poem. About halfway to Paris, Cappeau received the inspiration for “Minuit, chrétiens”, and wrote the poem down. When he arrived in Paris, he took the poem to the composer Adolphe Adam, who was then at the peak of his career, having written his masterpiece, the ballet Giselle, only a few years before. Adam wrote the tune in a few days, and the song received its premier at the midnight mass on Christmas Eve 1847.
The lyrics to this popular Christmas carol were written by Edmund Sears, pastor of the Unitarian Church in Weston, Massachusetts. No movie scenarist could have devised a more romantic setting for the composition of a Christmas poem. Reportedly, it was a cold winter day in December 1849. Outside, a snowfall was in progress and inside, the fireplace in the study was erupting with warmth and light. No doubt this picturesque New England scene and the holiday season inspired the frail minister, and his pen scratched out several stanzas of verse about the birth of Jesus.
A year later, in 1850, a tune by Richard Storrs Willis, a composer who trained under Felix Mendelssohn, was published under the title “Study No. 23”, set to the hymn “See Israel's Gentle Shepherd Stand”. Soon after the tune was rearranged to fit Sears' poetry — probably by Willis himself, although some sources state that Uzziah C. Burnap was responsible. The melody, now simply known as “Carol”, has become the most widely-known tune to the song in the USA, although other tunes exist; most notably, “Noel” by Arthur Sullivan, which is based on a traditional English air.
A variation in Willis' music has appeared during the course of the 20th century. The third note of the melody, which is played to the first syllable of the word “upon” in the first verse, was originally the same as the fourth note, i.e. C in the original key of B-flat major. Following an influential Episcopal hymnal, where the variation first occurred, the third note is now often sung a third below, making it an A. Since notable recordings exist for each one of the two versions, now both are generally accepted as “correct”.
This 2/4-time Allegro in E major is the fifteenth and last study in the first volume of Ernesto Köhler's Progress in Flute Playing. It mostly consists of slurred sixteenth notes, so a good articulation can really make the difference here.
This jig is taken from Francis O'Neill's celebrated collection Music of Ireland, published in Chicago in 1903.
Lough Gowna (an Irish name meaning “calf lake”) is a lake on the River Erne, located on the border between County Longford and County Cavan in the North-East of the Republic of Ireland.
Originally, “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” was sung to the same tune as Charles Wesley's celebrated Easter song, "Christ the Lord is Risen Today". According to researcher William Studwell, it was "a poor fit at best".
But in 1855, William Hayman Cummings, an English organist, adapted Wesley's hymn to some passages from Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy's choral work entitled “Festgesang”; the full title is actually Festgesang zur Eröffnung der am ersten Tage der vierten Sakularfeier der Erfindung der Buchdruckerkunst (“Festival Song”), which should not be confused with the similarly titled Festgesang an die Kuenstler, Op. 68. This Festgesang honored the 400th anniversary of Johann Gutenberg's invention of moveable type, and was first performed at the great festival held at Leipzig's open marketplace in June 1840.
Cummings was a Mendelssohn enthusiast who sang as a choirboy under the composer’s direction in London. At this point, it is impossible to say precisely where Cummings took his inspiration; however, the tune by Cummings appears to have been inspired by some passages in the second movement of Mendelssohn's cantata, “Vaterland, in deinem Gauen”.
Mendelssohn said of his work that it could be used with many different choruses but that it should not be used for sacred music. This may be because the melodic and harmonic structure of the tune are similar to the Gavotte of Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 4; indeed Mendelssohn, who has always been linked with the music of Bach, may simply have adapted Bach's music for his chorus.