Pour Saxophone Soprano et Piano / for Solo Saxophone and Piano-André Jolivet’s Chant de Linos for Saxophone and Piano (arrangement: Carmen Lefrançois). Captivated by the magical and religious dimension of music André Jolivet (1905-1971) couldn’t help but have a predilection for the Flute a “deep expression of humankind (…) that charges sounds with what in us is both visceral and cosmic”. Eight years after the famous Incantations for solo Flute in 1936 he wrote the Chant de Linos for Flute and Piano. Its pedagogical purpose – as an examination piece for national Conservatoire students - does not mask itsgravity: in Ancient Greece it was a funeral lamento originally sung in memory of the poet Linos who lost his life to Apollo’s jealousy. In 1945 the composer transformed this piece into a powerfully charming quintet for Flute Violin Viola Cello and Harp. The Editions Leduc are publishing a transcription for Soprano Saxophone and Piano written by Carmen Lefrançois and approved by Christine Jolivet the composer’s daughter. Lefrançois beautifully avoids smothering the delicacy of the music with the Saxophone's dynamics which could prove excessive in this context. The threnody interspersed with ritual dances retains its strange beauty touching the hearts of a new generation of musicians.

Three Pieces Inspired By Douanier Rousseau s Paintings-The Japanese Saxophonist and composer Ryo Noda born in 1948 has placed his musical trajectory under the concept of East Meets West: a crossing of influences illustrated by Murasaki No Fuchi for Saxophone duo in which the shakuhachi can be substituted for one of the Saxophones (AL 25 893). How could he have not felt certain elective affinities between his creation and that of Douanier Rousseau (1844-1910) whose jungle landscapes are the expression of a dreamlike exoticism? Inspired by three of the naïf master's paintings Yume – The Dream for solo Saxophone lets the listener first succumb to the incantation ofThe Snake Charmer (1907): the threnody imitating the flute imbued with mysterious sensuality is echoed in the surrounding Nature just like the pale moonlight reflecting on the surface of the lake. In War (1894) the charred trees and crimson clouds surround the goddess Bellone whose cavalcade is evoked by the 'slap' technique and the devastation by the Saxophone's harsh portamenti. The Dream (1910) shows us this woman nude in the middle of the jungle the state of Nature before the Fall the incarnation of archaic innocence.