Western concert flute in the context of "Piccolo"

An orchestra (/ˈɔːrkɪstrə/ ; OR-ki-strə) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families. There are typically four main sections of instruments:

• The string section, including the violin, viola, cello, and double bass
• The woodwind section, including the flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and occasionally saxophone
• The brass section, including the French horn (commonly known as the "horn"), trumpet, trombone, cornet, and tuba, and sometimes euphonium
• The percussion section, including the timpani, snare drum, bass drum, cymbals, triangle, tambourine, tam-tam and mallet percussion instruments

Other instruments such as the piano, harpsichord, pipe organ, and celesta may sometimes appear in a fifth keyboard section or may stand alone as soloist instruments, as may the concert harp and, for performances of some modern compositions, electronic instruments, and guitars.

A wind quintet, also known as a woodwind quintet, is a group of five wind players (most commonly flute, oboe, clarinet, French horn and bassoon).

Unlike the string quartet (of 4 string instruments) with its homogeneous blend of sound color, the instruments in a wind quintet differ from each other considerably in technique, idiom, and timbre. The modern wind quintet sprang from the octet ensemble favored in the court of Joseph II in late 18th century Vienna: two oboes, two clarinets, two (natural) horns, and two bassoons. The influence of Haydn's chamber writing suggested similar possibilities for winds, and advances in the building of these instruments in that period made them more useful in small ensemble settings, leading composers to attempt smaller combinations.

The Vaucanson Automat Flute Player is an android automaton playing the transverse flute, designed and produced by Jacques de Vaucanson and presented to the public in 1738. It faithfully recreates the playing of a flautist on an instrument identical to those in use at the time.

The Adagio and Rondo, K. 617, is a quintet composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart for glass harmonica, flute, oboe, viola and cello. Completed on May 23, 1791 (the date indicated in Mozart's own list of his works), it was written for Marianne Kirchgessner, a blind glass harmonica virtuoso, who played the first performance in the Burgtheater Akademie on June 10, 1791, and subsequently performed it at the Kärtnertortheater on August 19, 1791.

The autograph manuscript is in the British Library as part of the Stefan Zweig Collection. It was purchased by Zweig from a Berlin auction house in 1930.

A transverse flute or side-blown flute is a flute which is held horizontally when played. The player blows across the embouchure hole, in a direction perpendicular to the flute's body length.

Transverse flutes include the Western concert flute, the Irish flute, the Indian classical flutes (the bansuri and the venu), the Chinese dizi, the Western fife, a number of Japanese fue, and Korean flutes such as daegeum, junggeum and sogeum.

The alto flute is an instrument in the Western concert flute family, pitched below the standard C flute and the uncommon flûte d'amour. It is the third-most common member of its family after the standard C flute and the piccolo. It is characterized by its rich, mellow tone in the lower portion of its range. The bore of the alto flute is considerably larger in diameter and longer than the C flute and requires a larger column of air (volume of air) from the player, though it also requires a slower airspeed. This gives it a greater dynamic presence in the bottom octave and a half of its range. Its range is from G₃ (the G below middle C) to G₆ (4 ledger lines above the treble clef staff) plus an altissimo register stretching to D♭₇. It uses the same fingerings as the C flute and piccolo, but is a transposing instrument in G (sounding a perfect fourth lower than written).

British music that uses this instrument often refers to it as a bass flute, which can be confusing since there is a distinct instrument called the bass flute. This particular naming confusion originated in the fact that the modern C flute is pitched in the same range as the Renaissance tenor flute; implying that a lower-pitched instrument should be called 'bass', following the pattern of other instruments. However, the flute family's pitch-range naming system does not correspond correctly to human voice pitches (see description of ranges in the C flute article).

This is a list of notable compositions for the flute (particularly the Western concert flute).