Mozart wrote two concertos for the flute and one for flute, harp and orchestra. It is very evident in the _Magic Flute_. A solo passage in Beethoven’s _Leonora Overture, No. 3_, is very famous. In Beethoven’s _Pastoral Symphony_ it impersonates the nightingale. Mendelssohn loved the flute dearly. It is very important in his _Midsummer Night’s Dream_ music. It plays lovely sustained chords in the Overture, a beautiful part in the Nocturne and the Scherzo contains one of the most celebrated passages ever written. He also gave it an exquisite _obbligato_ in the quartet _O Rest in the Lord_ in the oratorio of _Elijah_. Wagner has a fine part for the flute throughout the _Meistersinger_; it is important in the _Largo_ of Dvořák’s _New World Symphony_, where it plays with the oboe; Liszt made it conspicuous in his _Hungarian Rhapsodie, No. 2_; and it sings in the _Morning_ of Grieg’s _Peer Gynt Suite_. Berlioz and Tschaikowsky both played the flute themselves and, naturally, their works are full of beautiful melodies for this instrument. Berlioz calls for two flutes and harp for the _Cris des Ismaëlits_ in _L’Enfance du Christ_. Tschaikowsky’s symphonies are a delight to the flute-player. An exceptionally striking use of the flute is in the _Danse des Mirlitons_ and _Danse Chinoise_ in the _Nut-cracker Suite_. Richard Strauss, who always goes a little farther than anybody else, has in the “Windmill” number of the _Don Quixote Variations_ called for the “flutter tongue,” a new way of rolling the tongue. The name describes it. Last, but not least, we must recall Gluck. What could be more beautiful than his use of the flute in _Armide_, unless it is to be found in the music of _Orfeo_? All through that beautiful opera the plaintive, tender voice of the flute is conspicuous. Not only does it play melodies for the enchanting ballets and minuets, but its wailing notes tell us of the grief of Orpheus for his adored Eurydice; and when we arrive in the Elysian Fields with Orpheus its pure and ethereal voice, heard in a solo of ravishing beauty, lifts us out of the everyday world we live in and transports us into a realm of blissful peace and enchanting beauty. [Illustration: FREDERICK THE GREAT PLAYING THE FLUTE _With his Orchestra at Sans Souci_] In early days the flute was played by holding it straight in front and not horizontally as shown in the picture facing page 74. The German, Quantz, did much to bring the horizontal flute into fashion. One of his most enthusiastic pupils was Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, who is shown in the picture facing this page playing a flute concerto with his orchestra at _Sans Souci_, taken from an engraving by Chodowieki. The King’s favorite greyhounds are the only listeners. Franz Benda is the first violin and Christian Friedrich Fasch, who succeeded Philipp Emanuel Bach (son of J. S. Bach), is playing the harpsichord. Modern compositions usually call for two flutes and a piccolo. THE PICCOLO