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4 - The repertoire heritage
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- By Thomas Liley
- Edited by Richard Ingham, Leeds College of Music
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- Book:
- The Cambridge Companion to the Saxophone
- Published online:
- 28 September 2011
- Print publication:
- 13 February 1999, pp 51-64
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- Chapter
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Summary
Introduction
The indispensable bibliographical index 150 Years of Music for Saxophone catalogues ‘more than 12,000 works of “classical music” for saxophone, 1844–1994. Not included are the 3,000 symphonic or operatic works in which one or several saxophones appear in the orchestration.’ The index lists music from dozens of countries by composers of all levels of recognition and of widely diverse aesthetic approaches. These men and women have written concertos for saxophone with band and with orchestra, sonatas for saxophone and piano, unaccompanied pieces, saxophone ensembles of various sizes, and works for saxophone in unusual combination with instruments such as voice, percussion, organ, tape and synthe-sizer.
The great majority of these works were written for the alto saxophone; only in the first and the most recent decades of the instrument's existence have composers given serious consideration to the other members of the family. This chapter will attempt to trace the growth of the saxophone literature, to identify influential compositions, and to create a sense of the heritage of the performing repertoire.
Much of the core of the saxophone repertoire dates from the 1930s and provides a striking parallel with that of the clarinet. Mozart's clarinet Concerto, K.622, written in 1790, is the first masterpiece for the clarinet, an instrument created around 1700. The saxophone first appeared around 1840; Ibert's Concertino da Camera was written some ninety years later in 1935, and is a comparable landmark in the history of the saxophone literature. Each composition has important predecessors, but the saxophone repertoire had an important advantage: Adolphe Sax.
1 - Invention and development
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- By Thomas Liley
- Edited by Richard Ingham, Leeds College of Music
-
- Book:
- The Cambridge Companion to the Saxophone
- Published online:
- 28 September 2011
- Print publication:
- 13 February 1999, pp 1-19
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- Chapter
- Export citation
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Summary
Introduction
The word ‘saxophone’ means ‘the sound of Sax’ – specifically that of Adolphe Sax. The Greek word ‘phone’, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, relates in particular to vocal sounds, so we should not be surprised that the saxophone is often described as a ‘singing’ instrument. In fact, the saxophone is the most flexible and expressive of musical instruments, exceeded, perhaps, only by the human voice. The human voice, of course, is capable of sounds as varied as cheerleading and Schubert lieder; it is capable of producing guttural sounds and fine-spun eloquence, of rabble-rousing and of inspiring. The saxophone is similar in its potential to move people, both viscerally and emotionally.
As a ‘singing’ instrument, the saxophone is unmatched by its mechanical counterparts. This is often reflected in its classical repertoire, but there can be little doubt that the saxophone is the pre-eminent jazz instrument. If jazz first came from the work-shouts and the blues sung in the nineteenth century, then it is natural that a ‘singing’ instrument such as the saxophone should be well suited to jazz and popular music. What is remarkable is that the instrument took so long to be adopted by jazz musicians.
The saxophone is the invention of a single man, Adolphe Sax. Both a thinker and a doer, he had the genius to conceive a new and versatile instrument, the practical background to bring his theories to fruition and the foresight to create the mechanisms necessary to ensure that it would become an important part of the musical world.