Serenade
Op. 35
By Howard Hanson

The Serenade, Opus 35, by Howard Hanson is a wonderful piece that explores the higher reaches of the flute and pushes the limits of speed. The whirling runs test just how fast a flautists fingers can go, and give the impression of flight to all who listen. The only pet...

-peave I have is the page turn. The first page ends right after the 4th measure of section 4. This requires the flautist to do one of three things; turn the page while both hands are needed to produce the proper notes, photo copy the first page, or memorize an entire section so that they can turn the page earlier or later than needed. Other than that, I have no complaints and find the piece to be a wonderful demondstration of how graceful the flute can sound.

This piece was written in around 1947, so it's quite contemporary. Its truly a romantic and passionate Compostion. For the Flutist that is looking for a high level piece of repitoire that requires next to zero tounging technique, but requires amazing fingering technique, then this is the piece. This...

fingering isn't necessarly confusing, but the hard thing is not to rush and to be extremely articulate, becuase they're all slurred. The runs basically consist of 64th note(and above) runns that change slightly, but thats not the hard part. What's hard is that they're 3 octaves(give or take) all the way up; ex. low-A to High-C(notice I said that they're hard, as in, more then one). Once mastered, I's a great piece. I also recommend to get a recording because the rhythms are very VERY hard to figure out just by sight reading.