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...trj...
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« Reply #15 on: 13:10:03, 17-09-2008 » |
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There's also Stefan Niculescu's astonishing Symphony No 3 'Concertante'
I somehow knew you'd mention that one!  I thought it was subtitled 'Cantos' though? A Grove search suggests there are something like 100 composers with works for solo sax and orchestra to their name. I've not heard most of these, but some interesting names on the list: Boguslaw Schaeffer Morton Subotnick Luca Francesconi Ian Wilson (This one I do know. pm me martle if you'd like a copy for research purposes) Esa-Pekka Salonen and Calin Ioachimescu (a Niculescu pupil) John Psathas has written two. Michael Nyman has written one soprano sax concerto and a double concerto for sax and cello. A lot of sax concs were written in the 1980s. All written for the same player? Harle? Or just coincidence? |
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time_is_now
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« Reply #16 on: 13:21:15, 17-09-2008 » |
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There's also Stefan Niculescu's astonishing Symphony No 3 'Concertante'
I somehow knew you'd mention that one! I thought it was subtitled 'Cantos' though? I beg your pardon. It's actually called Concertante-Symphony No 3 'Cantos'. It was one of several Romanian saxophone concertos written in the 80s for Daniel Kientzy, who was evidently the Eastern European John Harle! In addition to some of those in your list, there's also Anatol Vieru's Narration II, plus one by Myriam Marbe where he actually gets a name-check in the title: Concerto for Daniel Kientzy and Saxophones, although it does have an orchestral accompaniment. |
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The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
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Robert Dahm
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« Reply #17 on: 14:30:50, 17-09-2008 » |
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I was about to respond to this thread when I realised that Ollie had mentioned all three pieces I was intending to mention. In order.  We also agree with the esteemed Member Sudden about bore size, although we are not enamoured of M. Mule's vibrato, which sounds to our ears rather like the elderly busker that was once a fixture of the Bourke st mall. I have a lasting affection for both the Glazunov and the Dubois concertos. The Ibert never really grabbed me, I have to say. Like so much of the music 'influenced' by jazz in the Paris of the 1920's and 30's, there's something a bit fetishistic about the syncopation that irks me a bit. I'm also a little ashamed to say that I really like the Villa-Lobos Fantasia for sop and 13(?) instruments. |
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Il Grande Inquisitor
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« Reply #18 on: 18:59:30, 17-09-2008 » |
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It's also worth remembering Debussy's use of the instrument in his Rapsodie for alto saxophone, which is a beautiful piece; as well as a chamber version with piano, there's an orchestral one. There's also a version for cor anglais instead, but I cannot recall which came first...
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Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... Our two weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency
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Ron Dough
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« Reply #19 on: 19:09:53, 17-09-2008 » |
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On the lighter side, and for alto rather than soprano, there's Eric Coates's Saxo Rhapsody as well as a concerto by Ronad Binge (of Elizabethan Serenade and Sailing By fame).
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oliver sudden
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« Reply #20 on: 19:21:22, 17-09-2008 » |
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It's also worth remembering Debussy's use of the instrument in his Rapsodie for alto saxophone, which is a beautiful piece; as well as a chamber version with piano, there's an orchestral one. There's also a version for cor anglais instead, but I cannot recall which came first...
We suspect the cor anglais version came subsequently, the saxophone original having been commissioned by an asthmatic American lady and amateur saxophoniste Elise Hall who was it would seem overly patient with the Frenchman - he did not live to finish the work in all its details sending it to her in piano version and M Jean Roger-Ducasse completed the orchestration. There is anyway not much for the saxophone to do. Some saxophone players augment the saxophone line with material from the orchestra. This we find to be an ERROR of grave proportions as it deprives the work of much essential interchange. |
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martle
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« Reply #21 on: 19:42:17, 17-09-2008 » |
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Some saxophone players augment the saxophone line with material from the orchestra. This we find to be an ERROR of grave proportions as it deprives the work of much essential interchange.
With this we wholeheartedly agree, and indeed it is one of those pieces with which we have familiarised ourself in preparation for our own imminent task, greatly in admiration as we are of Mr J. Harle's performance of it almost a year ago in Brighton wherein was contained playing of beauty and restraint. It is not so much a concerto as a rhapsodic dialogue is not not not it.  |
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Green. Always green.
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Turfan Fragment
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« Reply #22 on: 21:29:15, 17-09-2008 » |
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Though no one will follow me into this territory, I like to cite to my saxophone composing students the example of Michael Nyman's saxophone concertos, not because they are particularly beautiful or successful (a judgement I withhold from my students), but because they clearly show how the different registers of the instrument behave and sound. One could learn that from an orchestration book, of course, but it's nothing like the same as having a full-fledged context upon which to gaze. At least one movement of one of them is almost a study in register differentiation.
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martle
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« Reply #23 on: 21:38:25, 17-09-2008 » |
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Which one, turfers? That interests me somewhat a great deal.
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« Last Edit: 21:42:07, 17-09-2008 by martle »
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Green. Always green.
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...trj...
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« Reply #24 on: 21:41:28, 17-09-2008 » |
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almost a study in register differentiation.
I think quite of a lot of Nyman can be thought of in that way. |
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Ruby2
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« Reply #25 on: 10:21:36, 18-09-2008 » |
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There was a sax-based piece on Breakfast this morning. I'm afraid I had to get out of the car to go into work so I failed to catch what it was, but I can tell you that it was playing at 9.00am. It did sound quite old-fashioned - not unpleasantly so, but then of course I don't know what era it was from. Sorry if that's not hugely helpful...  |
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"Two wrongs don't make a right. But three rights do make a left." - Rohan Candappa
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Ron Dough
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« Reply #26 on: 10:32:24, 18-09-2008 » |
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The full schedule for today is not yet released, rubes: we'll be able to let you know what it was once the complete listing's been posted.
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Ruby2
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« Reply #27 on: 15:29:04, 18-09-2008 » |
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Pierre VELLONES Cavaliers andalous + Les Dauphins Deffayet Saxaphone Quartet EMI 72360 CD2 Tr 18-19 So there we go. It sounded sort of 30s to me, which seems to fit the time at which it was written. Thanks for the tip about the schedule Ron. |
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"Two wrongs don't make a right. But three rights do make a left." - Rohan Candappa
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Turfan Fragment
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« Reply #28 on: 18:52:46, 18-09-2008 » |
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Which one, turfers? That interests me somewhat a great deal.
*embarrassed* I heard a colleague playing one of them and didn't bother figuring out which it was. As I said, I just 'send students there' and don't go along with them to listen. I just warn them that there's more than one. I suppose I should ask my colleague which one he played. Then again, see ...trj...'s ...comment... |
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richard barrett
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« Reply #29 on: 19:13:34, 18-09-2008 » |
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I was out taking my medicine with four "classical" saxophone players yesterday evening and asked them what they thought of the sax concerto repertoire and if there was anything that someone contemplating writing something for that instrumentation should absolutely seek out. The answers seem to have been "not much" and "no" respectively. One remark that they had was that there was no concerto they knew of which takes account of the enormous development and expansion of the instrument's possibilities which has taken place since the early 60s, apart from the occasional tokenistic use of "special effects" like multiphonics and key-slaps.
Actually I wonder why it isn't a more common genre, given that the sax stands much more chance than most other woodwinds of holding its own against a large-scale "accompaniment" and it has such a massive timbral range compared to flutes, oboes and bassoons. Maybe it's that there aren't that many soloists around, and those that there are tend (like John Harle) to be closer to the "French school" than say Anthony Braxton.
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