I’m looking for the sheet music to “The Butterfly Lovers” - the Chinese opera also known as “Liang Zhu”. (梁祝)
I’m looking for the Western-style score with the main theme, I think they call it a “concerto” but I’m not sure why.
Preferably for flute - usually it’s played on violin but I’ve heard it played on flute - and preferably solo/minimal or no accompaniment, but really I’m not in a position to be too picky. If I have to I will buy the violin one with accompaniment music and pay someone to arrange it for solo flute.
But it has to be in Western notation. I’ve seen it in Chinese notation with just numbers and lines and my friend, who will be performing it, can’t read that.
Any online sheet music stores or, better yet, huge sheet music shops or branches in Taipei will do as I can always go and ask.
There are some leads on this page. There are apparently only orchestral parts for the full orchestra score available, plus violin and piano reductions (which should be helpful to a flute player, as all three are non-transposing instruments, right?), but I’m not clear on how directly suitable a reduced score for, say, violin, would be for a flute. Someone with a better musical understanding might be able to shed light on that. Anyway, with a little work one can create an arrangement based on such a reduction.
Thanks!
That helps a lot. I found a copy of the violin-piano concerto that I could have sent to my friend, but first I have to ask her if she can read violin scores and play one on the flute without too much work (it doesn’t have to sound perfect; nobody will know if she fakes it a little). She’s got a degree in music and I know she’s taken composition and arranging classes so I am sure she is capable of making this happen…I just don’t want to ask for too much of her time seeing as she’s already agreed to play our wedding ceremony music (that’s what this is for - it’s going to be our processional).
Oh, well, with that background a violin to flute conversion should be easy for her, I imagine.
And congratulations! 
Thanks!
I know she can do it, but don’t want to put too much work on her shoulders.
I know a flute version exists, because I have a recording of it played on flute with a full Chinese orchestra background. For that recording to exist, a flute arrangement must necessarily exist. If P then Q.
But, if I can’t find it, and she doesn’t have the time to jigger up a violin version for flute, I will seriously pay someone to create the flute version from the violin one. I’d rather do that in Taipei as people will be more familiar culturally with the song, and anyway it’d probably be cheaper.
There should not be much difference between the violin and flute versions, outside of moving a few notes up or down at the edges of the range of each instrument. The key is the same – both are C instruments. Some fine nuances of articulation, breath marks vs. bowings, etc., but largely the same.