Hi guys, I was wondering if anyone could offer some songs that I can play on my flute and tenor recorder which have a similar range. I just learned Winter Movement II by Vivaldi and its basically the first “piece” I started playing, while as before I was playing “songs”. I guess I’m in between a beginner and intermediate at this point so I’m looking for other similar pieces in difficulty to Winter II. I’ve seen the other seasons and they are alot harder, and some don’t sound good without accompaniment. Winter II is great because it sounds good solo, I actually found the piece by a guy on youtube I always look at (cinderbutte). Thanks in advance guys.
Try some Irish tunes:
Start with the “Popular Tunes” at the bottom, #1. Drowsy Maggie, and keep going.
There are enough tunes to keep all of us occupied the rest of our lives.
Thanks, I’ll know where to go for irish jigs now. What about any suggestion for baroque/renaissance pieces?
You’ve come to the wrong place for that. I think there are baroque flute boards out there. We do mainly Irish around here.
Here’s a fine example:
Oh I don’t know. Jem might be along in a minute …
… and then there’s this:
http://shop.abrsm.org/shop/prod/ABRSM-Baroque-Flute-Pieces-Book-I/639857
I presume they’re available around the world. It’s a series of books, graded by difficulty, and it’s absolutely brilliant. Yes, it’s good to play them with an accompanist, but a lot of them sound OK on their own.
I find the Telemann Canonic Sonatas quite approachable. They might be too basic for you. I also have a set of Telemann fantasias that I got from von Huene that are a bit more advanced. I’ve found some good recorder music online, but the site seems to have disappeared.
Dropping in belatedly…
In addition to existing suggestions, there is oodles of Baroque material. Almost any Baroque flute sonatas by any composer you trip over, including all the obvious, famous ones, should be reasonably approachable, at least in parts, and will give you a challenge in the harder parts. Look at the tessitura of the flute part to work out if it is actually a piece for transverse flute or for treble (alto) recorder. Many pieces (especially Vivaldi) originally intended for recorder (“flauto”) get published as for “flute” by modern publishers. If the solo line doesn’t go below F in the bottom space on the stave, it will have been a recorder piece originally. Nowt wrong with that, and may encourage playing in key signatures which are a little more awkward on baroque or Simple System flutes, like C and F major, but limiting when you want to explore the full range of the flute.
Handel, Telemann, Bach, Vivaldi et al are all worth exploring, and the supply of material from more obscure composers is almost endless. There’s a good deal of material from these guys available free online if you look cleverly. Start by Googling “IMSLP”. Add a composer’s name, an instrument, etc. to your search specification… e.g. “imslp bach flute”.
This is the kind of thing you can find,e.g. JS Bach A minor Partita for Solo Flute http://imslp.org/wiki/Special:ImagefromIndex/216096
For Renaissance, look for material by Susato and Praetorius (among others). Most of their compositions were for consort rather than solo playing and come in 4 or 5 parts. The melody lines can be lovely (you have to spot which voice is the melody!) but ultimately they’re not terribly satisfying to play unless you have company. However, they’re usually fairly approachable technically, and I suppose you can have fun multi-track recording yourself doing all the parts…
Jacob van Eyck wrote some lovely, rather more challenging pieces, written for/best known played on recorder (e.g., lots of other clips out there), but again, why not on transverse flute if you fancy - you can select the simpler tunes/variations?
!!! 
[I’m going for the Denny brand of brevity. 
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