Orchestra Saxophones and
Strings
SKU:
PR.446411060
Composed
by Steven Stucky. Large
Score. With Standard
notation. Theodore
Presser Company
#446-41106. Published by
Theodore Presser Company
(PR.446411060).
UPC:
680160096275. 11x14
inches.
Steven
Stucky has described the
saxophone quartet as
surprisingly comparable
to the string quartet as
a classic chamber music
medium, while in the
concerto format providing
a worthy counterweight to
the string orchestra. At
times, the saxophones in
Music for Saxophones and
Strings “whisper,
murmur, sigh, sing,
squeal, or even
scream†as the
composer has written in
notes about the work.
Commissioned for the
Raschèr Quartet, the
work falls into two main
sections. The composer
continues that “the
opening slow movement is
dark, nocturnal,
troubled; the language is
densely chromatic.
Mysterious, barely
audible rustlings become
increasingly more
alarming; creatures cry
in the night; and the
movement climaxes in a
lyric outpouring of
melancholy, even tragic
character. The music
subsides by way of
cadenzas for the baritone
and tenor saxophone. The
second, fast movement
arrives almost unnoticed,
since at first it too is
made up of disconnected
fragments —
quirky, skittish,
playful. There are
irregular rhythmic
accents, gliding
quarter-tone runs,
scurrying saxophone
figures (suggesting,
perhaps, a distant echo
the bebop style), and
screaming excursions into
the altissimo register.
Briefly the melancholy of
the slow, nocturnal
opening returns, before a
quick coda leads to an
emphatic
conclusion.â€.
Concerto pour Quartet de Saxophones
Sweelinck, Jan Pieterszoon : "Sweelinck Concerto", Concerto Grosso for Chamber Orchestra in G (Parts) (Opus 72)
