20th century
Baroque
Classical
Romantic
20th century
21st century
Solo repertoire
Piccolo
Alto flute
Bass flute
Rodrigo Joaquin
Aitken, Robert
Amirov, Fikret
Amlin, Martin
Amram, David
Andriessen, Jurriaan
Arnold, Malcolm
Arrieu, Claude
Auric, Georges
Babbit, Milton
Bacchus, Peter
Bacri, Nicolas
Baker, Michael Conway
Baksa, Robert
Barber, Samuel
Barrere, Georges
Bartók, Béla Viktor János
Baton, René-Emmanuel
Beaser, Robert
Bennet, Richard Rodney
Berg, Gunnar
Berio, Luciano
Bernofsky, Lauren
Bernstein, Leonard
Bloch, Ernest
Bolling, Claude
Bon, Maarten
Bonis, Mel
Boughton, Rutland
Boulanger, Marie-Juliette
Boulez, Pierre
Bourdin, Roger
Bournonville, Armand
Bowen, Edwin York
Bozza, Eugène Joseph
Bréville, Pierre
Brings, Allen
Brotons, Salvador
Brown, Elizabeth
Brun, Georges
Burkhard, Willy
Burton, Eldin
Büsser, Henri
Camus, Pierre
Carmichael, John
Carter, Elliott
Casella, Alfredo
Chaynes, Charles
Clarke, Ian
Colgrass, Michael
Colquhoun, Michael
Copland, Aaron
Corigliano, John
Cortese, Luigi
Currier, Sebastian
Dahl, Walter Ingolf Marcus
Damase, Jean-Michel
Davidovsky, Mario
De Lorenzo, Leonardo
Debussy, Claude
Del Tredici, David
DeLaney, Charles Oliver
Delerue, Georges
Denisov, Edison
Dèsbriere, Jacques
Dick, Robert
Dinicu, Grigoraș
Dodgson, Stephen
Dohnányi, Ernő
Dubois, Pierre Max
Dukas, Paul
Durey, Louis
Dutilleux, Henri
Enescu, George
Farkas, Ferenc
Feld, Jindřich
Ferroud, Pierre-Octave
Flothuis, Marius
Folio, Cynthia
Foote, Arthur
Foss, Lukas
Françaix, Jean
Fukushima, Kazuo
Gade, Jacob
Gál, Hans
Gaubert, Philippe
Genzmer, Harald
George, Thom Ritter
Ghidoni, Armando
Gieseking, Walter
Glass, Philip
Glière, Reinhold
Golovin, Andrei
Gordeli, Otar
Grier, Lita
Griffes, Charles Tomlinson
Grinblat, Romuald
Grovlez, Gabriel
Guarnieri, Mozart Camargo
Gubajdulina, Sofia
Hahn, Reynaldo
Hailstork, Adolphus
Halphen, Fernand
Hanson, Howard Harold
Harberg, Amanda
Harbison, John
Harsányi, Tibor
Harty, Hamilton
Heiss, John
Heith, David
Henze, Hans-Werner
Higdon, Jennifer
Hindemith, Paul
Holliger, Heinz
Holmboe, Vagn
Honegger, Arthur
Hoover, Katherine
Hosokawa, Toshio
Hovhaness, Alan
Hüe, Georges Adolphe
Hurel, Philippe
Ibert, Jacques
Ichiyanagi, Toshi
Ittzés, Gergely
Ives, Charles
Jacob, Gordon
James, Bob
Jemnitz, Sándor
Jirák, Karel Boleslav
Jóhannsson, Magnús Blöndal
Jolivet, André
Jongen, Joseph
Karg-Elert, Sigfrid
Kay, Ulysses
Kelterborn, Rudolf
Ķeniņš, Tālivaldis
Kennan, Kent Wheeler
Kennedy, Martin
Kernis, Aaron Jay
Khachaturian, Aram
Kocsár, Miklós
Kodaly, Zoltan
Koechlin, Charles
Kornauth, Egon
Kraft, Leo
Krzywicki, Jan
Kupferman, Meyer
La Montaine, John
Lauber, Joseph
Lavista, Mario
Lee, Eugene
Leeuwen, Ary van
Levinson, Gerald
Liebermann, Lowell
Loudova, Ivana
Mack, Dieter
Mahler, Gustav
Maresz, Yan
Martin, Frank
Martino, Donald
Martinů, Bohuslav
Meltzer, Harold
Messiaen, Olivier
Mihalovici, Marcel
Milhaud, Darius
Mouquet, Jules
Mower, Mike
Muczynski, Robert
Nielsen, Carl
Norby, Erik
Nordenstrom, Gladys
Offermans, Wil
Olsen, Carl Gustav Sparre
Paget, Daniel
Perle, George
Petrovics, Emil
Piazzolla, Astor
Piston, Walter
Poulenc, Francis
Prokofiev, Sergey
Rachmaninoff, Sergei
Ran, Shulamit
Raphael, Günter
Rautavaara, Einojuhani
Ravel, Maurice
Reynolds, Verne
Riegger, Wallingford
Rivier, Jean
Rodrigo, Joaquin
Rota, Nino
Rotaru, Doina
Rouse, Christopher
Roussel, Albert
Rutter, John
Saariaho, Kaija
Sancan, Pierre
Schmidt, Ole
Schocker, Gary
Schulhoff, Erwin
Schwantner, Joseph
Sciarrino, Salvatore
Shostakovich, Dmitri
Sibelius, Jean
Smit, Leo
Tailleferre, Germaine
Takemitsu, Tōru
Taktakishvili, Otar
Tansman, Alexandre
Tomasi, Henri
Tower, Joan
Uébayashi, Yuko
Varèse, Edgar
Vasks, Pēteris
Weigl, Vally
Weinberg, Mieczysław
Wilder, Alec
Williams, Ralph Vaughan
Yi, Chen
Yun, Isang
Zgraja, Krystof
Concierto Pastoral
Concierto Pastoral
Joaquin Rodrigo: Concierto Pastoral for flute and orchestra was written in 1977-1978 and dedicated to James Galway, who commissioned the work.
In 1974 James Galway had approached Rodrigo for permission to transcribe his famous guitar-and-orchestra work, "Fantasía para un gentilhombre", for the flute. Intrigued by the instrument's expressive capabilities but wanting to provide a completely fresh work, Rodrigo chose to write a brand-new, original flute concerto instead, tailored to Galway’s legendary virtuosity.
The concerto premiered on October 17, 1978, at the Royal Festival Hall in London with James Galway as a soloist and Eduardo Mata conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra.
The piece is firmly rooted in neocasticismo, a distinct Spanish brand of Neoclassicism that merges traditional Spanish folk elements with French clarity and formal discipline. True to its title, Pastoral, the work evokes rural Spanish idylls, weaving in traditional shepherd themes, bird-call motifs, and the rustic folk melodies of Andalusia.
Upon opening the manuscript, Galway's immediate reaction was that parts of the concerto were essentially unplayable. Rodrigo was a pianist and a guitarist, completely blind since childhood, and he did not inherently understand the natural ergonomic and breathing limitations of woodwind instruments. As a result, he wrote lines for the flute as if he were writing for a keyboard or a violin. Galway famously noted that the manuscript was packed with un-idiomatic leaps, a breathless pace, and heavy utilization of the awkward, brittle fourth octave of the flute, requiring the player to maintain highly technical fingerings under extreme tension.In later masterclasses, interviews, and his own biographical recollections, he routinely referred to it as the hardest piece of the entire flute repertoire.
During the late 1970s, Rodrigo was entering his late 70s and was a revered elder statesman of global classical music. In 1977 he officially stepped down from his long-held position as the Manuel de Falla Chair of Music at the Complutense University of Madrid. He had held this prestigious musicology chair since 1947.
At the same time Spain was undergoing the "Transition" (La Transición) to democracy following the death of dictator Francisco Franco in late 1975. As Spain opened up rapidly to the rest of Europe, Rodrigo’s music combined distinct Spanish nationalist identity with broader European Neoclassical trends.
Eduardo Mata (conductor), The Philharmonia Orchestra, 1979, Sony / RCA Classics
1. Allegro
Eduardo Mata (conductor), The Philharmonia Orchestra, 1979, Sony / RCA Classics
2. Adagio
Eduardo Mata (conductor), The Philharmonia Orchestra, 1979, Sony / RCA Classics
3. Rondo
Wilson Ng (conductor), Presidential Symphony Orchestra, live performance on December 5, 2025, Ankara, Turkey
1. Allegro; 2. Adagio; 3. Rondo
James S. Kahane (conductor), Helsinki Chamber Orchestra, 2024, Resonus / Orchard
1 Allegro
James S. Kahane (conductor), Helsinki Chamber Orchestra, 2024, Resonus / Orchard
2 Andante
James S. Kahane (conductor), Helsinki Chamber Orchestra, 2024, Resonus / Orchard
3. Allegro scherzando
Rodrigo Joaquin
Joaquin Rodrigo (1901-1999) was a Spanish composer, universally celebrated for elevating the classical guitar to the global symphonic stage, despite being a pianist who did not play the guitar himself.
Born in Sagunto, Valencia, he was the youngest of ten children of a prominent local landowner. At age of four he lost his eyesight due to devastating diphtheria epidemic that swept through the Valencia region. The family relocated to the city of Valencia where he entered a specialized college for blind children. There he rapidly developed a dual passion for literature and local theater music. At age eight, Rodrigo began private instruction in solfège, piano, and violin. By 16, he was studying formal harmony and composition with professors from the Valencia Conservatoire. His earliest orchestral work, Juglares, premiered successfully in 1924. Following the path of his predecessors Isaac Albéniz and Manuel de Falla, Rodrigo moved to Paris in 1927. He enrolled at the École Normale de Musique, studying for five years under the iconic composer Paul Dukas. In Paris, Dukas took Rodrigo under his wing, and Manuel de Falla became a crucial lifelong friend and artistic mentor. Additionally, he attended classes in musicology and music history at the Sorbonne under Maurice Emmanuel and André Pirro, mastering histories from Renaissance polyphony to late-romantic opera.
Rodrigo’s creative process was incredibly labor-intensive. He constructed complex, multi-voiced orchestral arrangements entirely in his head, drafting them first in special musical Braille. He then dictated the manuscript note-by-note, bar-by-bar, to a sighted copyist who prepared the final score for publishing.His global breakthrough came with the 1939 completion of the Concierto de Aranjuez. Returning to post-civil war Spain, he combined active composition with elite musicology, holding the prestigious Manuel de Falla Chair of Music at the Complutense University of Madrid from 1947 to 1977.
Joaquín Rodrigo’s musical language is defined by a style known as neocasticismo (or neocastellanismo). This was a uniquely Spanish branch of 20th-century Neoclassicism. Rather than adopting the aggressive, atonal modernism sweeping through Europe during his lifetime, Rodrigo intentionally looked backward to create a highly refined, accessible sound.His music fuses the clean structures, clear textures, and formal balance of the 18th-century European Classical era with the passionate, modal melodies and rhythms of Spanish folk music.
His most notable compositions: Concierto de Aranjuez for guitar and orchestra (1939), Fantasía para un gentilhombre for guitar and orchestra (1954), and several instrumental concertos for piano (1942), violin (1943), harp (1952), and flute (1978).