🎶 Earlier this month, my instructor and I completed Johann Christian Schultze’s Sonata for Two Flutes in Album of Flute Duets, revised and annotated by Louis Moyse, and moved on to Hans Köhler’s Sonatina for Two Flutes in the same collection. This week, I am focused on the second page of the Allegro.

We are also working in a new-to-us book: Interval Duets by Thomas Filas, which appears to be out of print. “[T]he playing of duets is the starting rung of the ladder which leads to higher musicianship,” the introduction gently chides. Truth. While providing a respite in a challenging program of study, these deceptively simple pieces have reminded this adult student that while “speed” (or “velocity”) may be difficult to achieve, a clear, beautiful sound is always achievable.

🎶 In Robert Cavally’s Melodious and Progressive Studies from Andersen, Gariboldi, Koehler, and Terschak for Flute, Book 2, I am now working on the third of Köhler’s “moderately difficult pieces as studies for flute” from Op. 33, Book 2.

🎶 Speaking of difficult, this semester’s band selections… so, yes, P. Bona’s rhythmical articulation studies has sunk to the bottom of my daily practice roster again. As I have mentioned, though, only two assignments remain in this book, 116 and 120. I will get to them eventually.

🎶 This week, having successfully presented the third movement, I began practicing the first movement of the Stamitz Concerto in G major, Op.29. (Yes, I chose to work on them out of order.)

🎶 I am not playing piccolo in band this semester, so my instructor has added short piccolo duets to my practice sheet, as well as a solo: “L’oiseau du bois” by Charles le Thiere. Yes, this is all quite a lot, but right now, I am exhilarated, undaunted. Check back with me over spring break, though; the Köhler study could break me.