Free Pleasures of Pan, Vol. 1-5 online in pdf

(click on jpg of index above to enlarge.)

Free Sheetmusic aux Bon-Bons

Brigham Young University Library recently uploaded a printable pdf version of five of the volumes of the old 1918 anthology Pleasures of Pan. These are flute and piano solos and they are super fun.
Apparently these books went out of print in 1951. But there must be a few copies out there in the world...see my P.S. below.

Thanking my emailing flute professor friend who sent the links and, naturally, full of fervent flutey-teacherly interest, I sat down and played through the collection. Oh my.

 Is it ever Doppler-esque,
Kohler-esque, and wantonly
Arabesque.

These are parlour pieces from the late 1800s, but the collection overall contains a shower of traditional showpieces that are still in the repertoire. (My flute professor friend says "The goofier ones are known as "Bon-bons" because they are very sweet, and you can't have too many at once or you feel slightly yuck...ah ha ha.)

But several are outstanding repertoire solos (see if you can guess which ones by reading the titles, or like I did, by playing through the many that were unfamiliar!).

While sifting through which ones to print, and then one heavenly, blast-fest week of playing these pieces, I also find that some of the works have fun pedagogical applications like extensive rapid chromatic legato passages, or B-flat finger switches/choices, or multiple tonguing while playing sweeping arpeggios that are more beautiful than regular scale-book arpeggios etc.

So fun for all. :>D
Even if you never perform them all, many have rewarding swoopiness if nothing else. :>D

At the top of this blog post you can click on the jpg of my marked up "Pleasures of Pan" general index  to take a preview of what is in the collection. I've put dots next to those works that I find playable and of interest.

Then go to the links below to get and print your own "Pleasures of Pan" sheetmusic.

Links:
Five of the Six Volumes available online in pdf are at these links:

Volume 1: Flute and Piano parts.
https://archive.org/details/pleasuresofpanso01bost

Volume 2: Flute and Piano parts.
https://archive.org/details/pleasuresofpanso02bost

Volume 3: Score only
https://archive.org/details/pleasuresofpanso05bost

Volume 4: Flute and Piano parts.
https://archive.org/details/pleasuresofpanso04bost

Volume 5: Score only
https://archive.org/details/pleasuresofpanso03bost

There is no library copy of vol. 6.
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Notes:
The library person has accidentally uploaded the fifth book and the third book reversed in their catalogue.  03 is marked 05 and the reverse.

To download and print the pdfs:

Look on left sidebar to choose Black&White pdf, and download it to your hardrive, to later print just the pages you want. I print in black ink only.

Some volumes are missing flute parts, and have score only. Those with flute parts have them at the end of the score.

If your computer equipment is a little old fashioned, perhaps your printer may choke if you try to print too many pages in one fell swoop; each of these library-scanned pages go through "flattening" process, it seems. The blue bar takes ages to send the information to the printer. Try setting the printer to only print a few pages at a time.  Walk away if you must. :>)

I found for some that it was easiest, especially with flute parts, to print one page only at a time, by choosing "Print page showing" especially if the flute part pdf page numbering is causing printing confusion.

But technological printer chokes aside, do enjoy.
You can play these works right off the computer screen to check them out if nothing else.

I played the best ones into my Zoom recorder and then on a second and third track played the right and left hands of the piano part (octave transpositioning of course) to hear the chords; lovely stuff. :>)

Best, Jen

P.S. If any flutist reading this has a copy of  just the flute part for the Doppler "Chanson D'Amour" opus 20, please let me know. I'd love to play along with the Aitken recording I found of it; never knew it existed! And it's Doppler!  Stun!!