Serenade a Mabel for flute and piano, Op. 67

Benjamin Godard: Serenade à Mabel for flute and piano, originally published as the second movement of "Contes de la veillée" (Tales of the Evening), Op. 67 for piano solo was written in 1882.
Due to its immense melodic popularity, it was almost immediately transcribed for flute and piano (and violin and piano) and became a staple of the Belle Époque salon repertoire. The Op. 67 set is dedicated to Madame la Comtesse de Chambrun, a prominent patron of the arts and a talented amateur musician. Her salon was one of the most influential in Paris, where Godard, Saint-Saëns, and Liszt were frequent guests. The "Mabel" in the title refers to a specific character or dedicatee within the "tales" told in the music, reflecting the Victorian/Belle Époque trend of naming character pieces after idealized female muses.
In 1882, Benjamin Godard was 33 years old and at a professional peak. Just a few years prior, Godard had won this prestigious prize for his dramatic symphony Le Tasse. This victory gave him the financial and social freedom to publish a massive amount of chamber music in the early 1880s. Around that time, Godard solidified his reputation as a master of the "Pièce de Genre": short, evocative works intended to create a specific mood. Sérénade à Mabel is a textbook example: it mimics the plucked strings of a guitar (in the piano) and a soaring, seductive vocal line (in the flute).
This was the era when Paul Taffanel was transforming flute playing at the Paris Conservatory. Godard’s music from the early 1880s provided the "new" silver flutes with the lyrical, elegant repertoire they needed to distinguish themselves from the older wooden flute traditions.