Story of the Flute
in 1518. Flutes were used, along with lutes, in Corteccia's ballet music at the marriage of Cosmo I. and Eleanora of Toledo in 1539; and in Baltazarini's Ballet Comique de la Royne the music of which was composed by Salmon and Beaulieu in 1581. In this work each character is always accompanied by special instruments (as also in Monteverde's Orfeo), those of Neptune being flutes and harp. In Cavaliere's oratorio Anima e Corpo, produced at Rome in 1600, the orchestra included two flutes, whilst in Jacopo Peri's Eurydice (December, 1600), the earliest Italian opera, three flutes behind the scene played a Ritornello, whilst Tirsi, a shepherd, pretended to play a triple flute ("tri-flauto") on the stage. Here is what he played, the longest piece of instrumental music in the entire opera!—
Peri, Eurydice.
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