The Romance for a melodic instrument and piano was a very popular genre in French salon music of the nineteenth century. Saint-Saëns also wrote several such pieces for violin, cello, and horn. His only Romance for flute wascomposed in 1871, shortly after the Société nationale de musique had been founded. It was premiered in this new forum for piano music and chamber works a year later, too. In spite of its brevity, the piece contains numerousharmonic and melodic refinements, which rapidly made i