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TWENTY FIVE YEARS OF BASBWE AND WASBE REPERTOIRE: SAXOPHONE AND WIND BAND/ORCHESTRA/ENSEMBLE by Tim Reynish originally appearing in WASBE Newsletter 2001 and available on WASBE website under Repertoire Resources, 2003. Updated 15 January 2006 INTRODUCTION – THE LAST PICTURE SHOW The late Warren Benson always counselled against making lists – and now I know why. My list of saxophone repertoire came out in the WASBE Newsletter in 2001, was updated in 2003 for the web, again in 2005 for my own web, and is being updated now to celebrate the quarter century of BASBWE & WASBE. It is already out of date, not because of new pieces but of old, a Concerto for Four Saxophones and Band by Bill Connor, premiered in its band version by The Band of HM Royal Marines at Huddersfield BASBWE Conference in 1994, lasting forty four minutes and recapturing the flavour of the bands for the silent movies. But wait, there is a terrible sense of déjà vu. I left out of my original list a work on a similar theme, also for quartet, the superb Minton’s Playhouse by James Syler. Warren, you were as always absolutely right! RECENT WORKS FOR SAXOPHONE AND ENSEMBLE
SOME BASIC REPERTOIRE FOR SAXOPHONE AND BAND
** URGENT Can anyone give me details of the Concerto Capriccio by Kalinkowic, please? ** PAST SELL-BY DATE June 14th 2005 Some time ago I wrote a brief article for WASBE on Saxophone repertoire, inspired by the premiere of a new piece from Michael Colgrass by consortium members led by Kenneth Radnowsky, and performances of the Concerto by Michael Ball. Since then a lot has happened, and my article is even more out of date than it was. STOP PRESS JANUARY 15 2006 While sending a note to colleagues on the WASBE Executive to ask if my article on WASBE website could be updated, I realised that my own web is out of date. At the BASBWE Conference November 2005, John Harle and Rob Buckland, with the Chethams School Wind Orchestra conducted by James Gourlay, gave a stunning performance of the latest BASBWE Consortium commission. Adam Gorb wrote to me: By the way Andy Scott's new double Saxophone concerto is absolutely tremendous - a really 21st century mix of jazz, pop and streetwise funky rhythms: along with Zechariah Goh's piece the best new wind band work of the year; you must catch it. Andy’s concerto for two saxophones is called 'Dark Raindrops' and will be published and available for hire from Astute Music. Contact info@astute-music.com JOHN HARLE IN UK PREMIERE The Concerto by Michael Ball I commissioned some time ago, and I was delighted to be able to play it recently at the Royal College of Music with a super young Australian player, Amy Dickson, winner of a number of very prestigious awards. A work I was keen on then was David Kechley’s Restless Birds before the Dark Moon and I am delighted to have conducted the UK premiere of this at the Barbican on October 24th with John Harle and the Guildhall; this was repeated at the International Saxophone Day in Manchester on Sunday November 6th. This update is again inspired by a spate of world premieres, Mike Mower’s virtuoso Concerto, premiered in Lexington Kentucky on Monday 17th April; sadly the Concerto for Saxophone Quartet and Wind Orchestra by Richard Rodney Bennett due to be played at BASBWE in 2005 has been cancelled. The Mike Mower Concerto is a tour de force for Professor of Saxophone at University of Kentucky, Lexington, who is a very physical and exciting player. I know nothing about jazz, but I love the freewheeling inventiveness of Mower’s concerto, and also his Flute Concerto, full of fun, sometimes very beautiful, often breath-takingly virtuosic, always challenging, rarely predictable. WEB BROWSINGS Browsing through the web, one comes across all sorts of ideas. In my first web homepage I noted a work by Richard Peaslee called Chicago Concerto for Alto and Ensemble, published by Schirmer. I first came across Peaslee when I was, for a wonderful three weeks, director of music in Paris for the Royal Shakespeare Theatre production by Peter Brook of Midsummer Night’s Dream; Richard’s music was evocative and charming, and I was delighted to come across his Arrows of Time arranged for Trombone and Wind Ensemble. I guess that Chicago Concerto will be a real find, especially for baritone players. My December Homepage noted that the winner of the 2004 International Harmoniecompositiewedstrijd Harelbeke Muziekstad (catchy title) was Ramallah for alto saxophone and wind ensemble by the Canadian composer Robert Lemay, from Laurentian University, Sudbury, Ontario. In the list of “new” works are some old ones, but they are relatively new to me. One composer whose music I enjoy is Bernard van Beurden, greatly under-rated; his Concertino for Soprano Saxophone is charming and well-worth exploring, and I am sure that the “Let’s Go” for Nine Saxophones will be a great vehicle for a good saxophone studio. THE OLD ORIGINAL ARTICLE There has recently been a terrific crop of new works for Saxophone and Wind Band/Orchestra/Ensemble or whatever you want to call it. The biggest problem is simply getting the news around about major premieres, and here the World Association for Symphonic Bands & Ensembles has a major role to play if players, conductors and audience let WASBE know about performances. One of the great benefits of the internet and email is that there is now no excuse for our not exchanging information. RESTLESS BIRDS BEFORE THE DARK MOON I think that one of the most striking pieces I have heard for a long time is David Kechley's Restless Birds Before the Dark Moon, commissioned by the United States Military Academy Band at West Point to celebrate their bicentennial, and premiered by this band at the International Saxophone Symposium in Montreal, Canada on the 7th of July 2000 by alto saxophone soloist Wayne Tice with conductor David Deitrick. Two movements of technical virtuosity frame a more reflective chorale-like movement, which has at its kernel another explosion of virtuosity for the soloist accompanied by percussion. This is an exciting work, contemporary but audience friendly, and it is not at all surprising that the work won one of the major composition prizes — the National Band Association Revelli Memorial Prize — in 2000. David Kechley has written several substantial works involving saxophones, including In the Dragon's Garden for Alto Saxophone and Guitar, and Stepping Out for Saxophone Quartet. He is on the faculty at Williams University and can be contacted by e-mail. DENISOV AND LARSEN ARRANGED I am not personally a great fan of arrangements unless they are most skilfully done. However when an arrangement will introduce a piece to a wider audience, and where the transcription has been skilfully made by a composer of stature or a very experienced arranger, then there is a good case for performing them. Two important contemporary works and a mid-20th century classic are now available with wind accompaniment and can be wholeheartedly recommended. The Russian composer Dmitri Smirnov writes, "My teacher, Edison Denisov (1929-1996), in his youth (in 1950) sent to Shostakovich all his early scores, and Dmitri Shostakovich found "the great composer's gift" in them. As a respectful tribute to Shostakovich, he wrote a piece named DSCH (1969). And it was no mere surprise that his next composition Sonata for Alto Saxophone and Piano (1970) also begins and is based on the monogram of Shostakovich's name: "DSC" says the Saxophone, "H" answers the piano. The piece became one of the greatest hits of the saxophone repertoire. I met saxophonist Arno Bornkamp a couple of years ago, and he said: ‘I adore the Denisov Sonata. It is one of the best pieces written for saxophone. I dream to play it with orchestra as a saxophone concerto.’ Now this dream becomes a reality. Commissioned by the Nederlands Blazers Ensemble, Duration is about 12 minutes" This arrangement is scored for flute, pairs of oboes, clarinets, bassoons and horns, with percussion and double bass and is published by Leduc. Another piece with chamber ensemble is an arrangement of Darius Milhaud's Scaramouche made by the Dutch conductor, arranger and musicologist, Bastiaan Blomhert. Authorized by Mme. Milhaud and Editions Salabert, the work is for double wind quintet with tuba/double bass. It is in manuscript. Information is available from WASBE member Bastiaan Blomhert. HOLY ROLLER Libby Larsen's Holy Roller for saxophone and piano has quickly established itself as a great recital piece. I have not actually heard it yet in the original, but John Boyd's transcription for band, published by Oxford University Press, is so theatrical that I cannot imagine that the original can be quite as effective. There was a memorable UK premiere by Rob Buckland, who burst on the stage and began ranting and raving like a Southern preacher, very authentic until we began to hear him pleading for subscriptions to WASBE to be sent to I think him. DREAM DANCER Michael Colgrass has now contributed two major works to the saxophone world. His Urban Requiem for Saxophone Quartet and Wind Orchestra is published by Carl Fischer and is available on at least two recordings, one by the commissioning body, the University of Miami Wind Ensemble conducted by Gary Green, TROY212, the other by Craig Kirchhoff and the University of Minnesota Symphonic Wind Ensemble, recorded on innova 517. His most recent work was the result of a commission from a consortium of international ensembles, put together by Kenneth Radnowsky, who gave the first performance at the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, UK. A month later, the critic of the Boston Globe, Richard Dyer, wrote of the United States premiere at the New England Conservatory: "The performance under [Charles] Peltz was first-rate, and the music felt - and you do feel Colgrass's music - gorgeous, dramatic, compelling. Dream Dancer issues a promissory note for an even more exciting century for this musical medium. Colgrass uses tradition as the basis for creating a future." The scoring of this work is for the wind, brass and percussion of the symphony orchestra, picc, fl, alt fl, 2 obs, (2nd dbl Eng hn), Eb clar, Bb clar, bass clar, 2 bsns, cbn, 4 hns, 3 tpts, 3 tbns, tba, keyboard (pno & cel), hp, 2 cb, 4-5 perc. BRITISH MUSIC FOR SAXOPHONE Here then are six more major contributions to the swiftly increasing repertoire for solo saxophone and wind ensemble/wind orchestra, to which I think can be added three works which I commissioned from UK composers. Michael Ball's Saxophone Concerto (Maecenas) and Graham Fitkin's Game Show (ms) were both commissioned for and premiered by the Manchester-based player Robert Buckland, while John Casken's Distant Variations for Saxophone Quartet and Wind Ensemble (Schotts) was written for Buckland's Apollo Quartet. Ball's Concerto is an energetic work, in three movements, scored for a school or community band at about American Grade 4. Game Show was a joint commission with the Uster Festival and was premiered there in 1997. It is a restless minimalist work, curious in that the band includes three soprano saxophones. Distant Variations was premiered at London's Barbican in 1997 and has received performances worldwide since then. It is cast in one movement, tough, closely argued, and requiring virtuosity of both the quartet and the orchestra. For more information about these three works, contact the publishers or Rob Buckland c/o RNCM, 124 Oxford Road, Manchester. HEADIN’ OUT, MOVIN’ IN Incidentally, on my return from USA after hearing the American premiere of the Colgrass, I was assailed by Andy Scott of the Apollo Quartet, who wanted to know why there were not any concertos featuring tenor saxophone. There is at least one which I heard at New England and enjoyed hugely, Headin'Out, Movin' In for Tenor Saxophone and Jazz Ensemble by Gunther Schuller, published by Margun/ Bote und Bock. WASBE AND THE SAXOPHONE Various WASBE Conferences concerts have featured saxophone soloists. In 1999, Norbert Nozy gave a terrific performance of the brilliant Concert Capriccio for Alto Sax and Band on a Theme by Paganini by Vassili Kalinkovic, (recorded on Mark Records 3141MCD). In Valencia in 1993, the principal alto saxophone of the Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra, Nobuya Sugawa, played the Concerto Fantastique by Yasuhide Ito, and in 1987 at the Boston Conference, John Paynter and the Northshore Concert Band premiered Warren Barker's Capriccio for Saxophone Quartet and Band. In 2001 in Lucerne, one of the high spots or low spots, (controversy raged) was the performance of the Mahlerian Saxophone Concerto by David Maslanka, given by University of Arizona Wind Ensemble and Joseph Lulloff, the performers who premiered the work at the North American Saxophone Alliance Conference in March 2000. Addendum Marvin Eckroth writes: Gene Rousseau and F. Fennell produced a CD a couple of years ago of all solo saxophone works with wind ensemble, so more stuff is around. Just a couple of items here: Divertimento by Roger Boutry is now available with Wind Band, published by Leduc (Boutry did the Band setting), and is really worthwhile. It would also be worth listing the Claude Smith Fantasia published by Wingert-Jones (played at WASBE 1989 by Dale Underwood) as well as the very contemporary Kafr of Christian Lauba (Saxophone and Flute Soloists) played at the 1997 WASBE Conference; this is a fine work that takes more than one hearing to appreciated and not always accessible work, but is very significant and distinctive. Repertoire Lists. Publisher Information AMP: www.schirmer.com Bourne: www.bournemusic.com Carl Fischer: www.carlfischer.com Graham Fitkin: 4 Lisbon Terrace, St Buryan, West Cornwall, UK Jenson: see www.halleonard.com Leduc: www.alphonseleduc.com Maecenas: maecenasmusicltd@aol.com Margun: see www.musicsales.com Molenaar: www.molenaar.com OUP (Oxford): choose UK Music pages, USA Music pages, or OUP International Site Pine Valley Press: PO Box 582, Williamstown, MA 01267, USA; tel. +1 (413) 458 2431 Presser: www.presser.com G. Schirmer: www.schirmer.com Schott: www.schott-music.com UE: www.uemusic.at |