Product Reviews: Petite Histoire en Huit Scènes et Huit Notes

The first thing to say about this set of pieces is that it's not for flute! It is for descant recorder, and the 'huit' notes are the notes of the diatonic scale of C, the lowest being the bottom note on the recorder. The recorder part is limited to these notes throughout. Although the range is designed to be easy, the music has a huge variety of rhythms and lots of staccato articulations, making it awkward for early-grade flautists to play at this on the lowest notes. It could be transposed up an octave by sight but would need a more advanced ability to do this.

The 'huit scenes' are those of a fairy tale, for example: 'La petite princesse,' 'Le petit prince,' 'Le miroir,' 'La sorciere,'La foret magique,' etc, with musical gestures relating to these. The pieces are curious, musically interesting, but with some quite loosely structured melodic writing and unexpected melodic and harmonic disjunctions.

The piano part is of moderate difficulty but often very high in the right hand, making it hard music to sight read easily. To conclude, I don't this music is suitable for early grade flautists and have rated it in relation to this. For recorder: 3 stars