I’m trying to compile a cd of famous pieces of music to demonstrate all the various kinds of instruments. This is a project for my grade six band class. I’d like to be able to inspire my kids through examples of their instruments. What I’m looking for is famous examples of the following instruments:
Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Saxophone, Tuba, French Horn, Baritone, Trumpet. Percussion, and trombone.
Suggest anything that you think might be a good example of their instrument! Thanks!
Moved from IMHO to CS.
Here you’ll find links to samples of many instruments (via the menu on the left). In addition to the sound files, there’s a lot of other info.
For saxophone, something by John Coltrane… I would recommend Blue Train, A Love Supreme, or Live at the Village Vanguard. For trumpet you can’t go wrong with Miles Davis, maybe something off Kind of Blue or 'Round Midnight.
I was thinking William Tell for trumpet.
Is baritone the same thing as a bassoon? Because The Sorcerer’s Apprentice has a really famous bit featuring that instrument (it’s when the brooms first start to multiply).
No, baritone is kind of a half-size tuba. Brass instrument.
Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune and Syrinx by Claude Debussy are both excellent flute pieces.
You can find MP3’s of both here.
I’ll do Clarinet!
and any Dixieland music.
You ought to be able to find examples of several of these in Britten’s “Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra.” Maybe also Ravel’s “Bolero.”
Pretty much every instrument has had concertos written for it, but not all are what I’d call famous. The most famous concertos for flute, oboe, clarinet, and French horn are, in each case, the ones by Mozart.
Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf features:
• Bird: flute
• Duck: oboe
• Cat: clarinet
• Grandfather: bassoon
• Wolf: 3 French horns
• Hunters (gunshots): timpani and bass drum (The hunters’ theme is actually introduced by the woodwinds)
• Peter: string instruments
Do you mean a whole CD for each instrument, or one or two tracks featuring each?
In either case, don’t rule out making use of the fairly obvious Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, especially the variations featuring the percussion and the horn, and the latter also have a truly brilliant (not just in the British sense 
) moment in the finale. A good narrated performance is worth finding, although I’m afraid I don’t have any particular recommendations (a lot of that depends on how your pupils will react to a particular narrator).
Don’t assume things need to be well-known. On the percussion front, I’ve seen younger kids than yours fascinated by Varese’s Ionisation, which would get a big fat WTF from many adults.
The Strauss oboe concerto is one worth considering, with the solo being very prominent throughout, which I think should be a particular consideration.
For the flute, showing them this guy is bound to get a reaction.
And of course, as always, the part of Bob the Janitor is played by the accordion.[/Weird Al Yankovic]
I second ‘Stranger on the shore’ for clarinet.
How about thisfor percussion? 
Here’s the Pink Panthertheme for saxophone.
I had been lead to believe that a baritone was basically the marching band’s French horn. Glad you answered first.
A lot of times you’ll see marching bands using mellophones for French horns and marching baritones for baritones, which look a lot alike from far away. But a French horn is usually playing higher than a trumpet and a baritone is playing lower than a trombone (french horn -> trumpet -> trombone -> baritone -> tuba). Totally different instruments.
I was a trombonist through high school and I am having a hard time coming up with “famous” trombone parts…our best parts were pieces of marches (in concert band) or some parts of jazz songs (in jazz band).
Our favorite piece to play was probably “Stars and Stripes Forever” which had a hard-rocking part towards the end of the song, and then a great counter melody during the final chorus.
You can check out JJ Johnson, who is probably the most famous jazz trombonist, see if you can find anything he played that is recognizable.
Of course, the most “recognizable” thing about a trombone is the ability to do perfect glissandos. That’s near impossible on any other instrument…“Tailgate Rag” is an absolute bitch to play but it’s all glissandos.
Why is bassoon missing from the original list?
Can’t any bowed string instrument produce a perfect glissando, too?
Heehee…you’ll have to forgive me. When I start thinking about “band” and “instruments” I revert to fond memories of all the bands I was in, which did not include any stringed instruments. So I was thinking about how my best buddy and his stupid trumpet could not gliss 
So, yeah I’m sure they can. I’ve just never sat next to one 
It’s not classical, but the cor anglais famously appears in the Carpenters’ “For All We Know”.
And the current hands-down favorite oboe piece in the whole wide world, also not classical, is “Gabriel’s Oboe”, from the film The Mission, currently overrunning Youtube.
But you asked for “famous”, not “famous classical”.
I can’t find it online, but Drum Dances by John Psathas is excellent for percussion.