Seafarers, captains, and all those who love the sea: This one’s for you. And remember to swing those hornpipes!"
The sheet music for Flautilla: Sea Songs Salty and Serene is now available as a digital download through Sheet Music Plus. Search by title or under Dorothy van Joolen Barth.
On February 25, 2015, we released Flautilla: Sea Songs Salty and Serene as a our first digital CD. You may preview all the tracks, purchase individual tracks, or purchase the complete album through CDBaby, Amazon, and iTunes.
An anthology of English, Irish, and
Scottish nautical music
selected and arranged by Dorothea Barth
As an introduction to Flautilla, below are excerpts from the Preface:
"I’ve long wanted to arrange a book of nautical tunes for two instruments. Perhaps this is no surprise, since an immigrant ship, de Groote Beer, first brought me to America as a young girl.
For the past five years, my husband and I have lived in Vallejo, California, whose waterfront I walk most days. I pass the century-old Yacht Club and across Mare Island Strait view the massive, ghostly remnants of what once was the West Coast’s oldest shipyard, Mare Island Naval Shipyard...."
For Flautilla, I drew the source tunes from Playford’s Dancing Master, O’Neill’s Music of Ireland, and the Gow Collection of Scottish Dance Music. I’ve kept the melodies true to their source, though as always I grant myself liberty to switch the tune between the two instruments, change octaves, and add embellishments on repeats--something that would also be done in spontaneous performance.
As in my previous collections, these arrangements were conceived for recorder and violin but may also be played on flute and violin or two violins. In this volume, the suggested recorder range is indicated, but the adaptable recorder player may experiment with different ranges. We prefer the soprano recorder (which sounds an octave higher than written) on reels, jigs, and hornpipes and the tenor recorder (or alto recorder depending on range) for slower, lyrical tunes.
- Flautilla CD Release Video
