I have a confession – I don’t really like music for saxophone – which means I need to listen to more contemporary works for sax and find some that I at least want to get to know better. I think I’m compiled a fun group of works (some are arrangements as a heads up), and I’ve placed them in order to get progressively higher on the Difficult Listening Hour Scale. If you enjoy the first half of this playlist, buckle up for the second half. Or not, I’m not your parent. I think one thing that bugs me about the majority of sax music (I’m mostly referring to sax quartets at this point) is that it has a tendency to go fast and loud, which, to be fair, volume was one of the reasons the instrument was created in the first place.
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I give this playlist a Difficult Listening Hour rating of 3/10 ramping up to 9/10.
To learn more about Adolphe Sax, the bonkers inventor of the saxophone, I highly recommend watching this episode of Puppet History.
1. Night Music by Emma O’Halloran performed by the Prism Quartet. Album: Animal, Vegetable, Mineral. From the liner notes, John Schaefer writes, “PRISM’s ambitious program of commissioning and championing new works for saxophone quartet has produced some wonderful, unexpected connections between pieces and composers. The opening work on this album, Emma O’Halloran’s Night Music, and the closing piece, Cha by Julia Wolfe, come from composers of different generations and different countries. But both, in their own ways, were inspired by the rhythms of Latin music. O’Halloran’s piece and Kristin Kuster’s Red Pine are both examples of tone painting; Wolfe’s Cha and Anna Weesner’s Vamp both have family stories behind them. Only Steven Mackey’s piece, which gives this collection its title, appears to stand alone. But since Mackey is a serial collaborator with PRISM, it’s not hard to connect his work to the entire project.”
2. New York Counterpoint 1 by Steve Reich, arranged and performed by the Delta Saxophone Quartet. Album: Minimal Tendencies. This is an arrangement of New York Counterpoint, originally written for clarinets. While they are both single reed instruments, I was surprised I liked hearing this on saxes.
3. Solastalgia by Duncan Youngerman performed by the Vienna Saxophonic Orchestra. Album: Frameless Pictures. The only thing I found about this specific piece is the description “Threnody for Earth” on the composer’s SoundCloud.
4. Accordecon de Roto Corazon by Javier Álvarez performd by the Delta Saxophone Quartet. Album: Facing Death. This work was written in in 1994 according to Wikipedia, outside of that I couldn’t find any info!
5. Solfeggio by Arvo Pärt performed by the Alea Saxophone Quartet. Album: Arvo Pärt: Anima. This is an arrangement of a choral work of the same name.
6. Flux by Ashley John Long performed by the Lunar Saxophone Quartet. Album: Flux. I did not find any notes about this piece, but you can view the score here, via the composer’s website.
7. BLACK MARY by Shelley Washington performed by Jeffrey Leung. Album: Consortium Works: Solo Saxophone. From the composer’s website, “I am a composer, performer, collaborator, and educator who grew up in Kansas City, Missouri. I like to write music with a big palette that draws elements from jazz, rock, American folk and other musical spaces, new and old. I also perform regularly as a saxophonist, primarily wielding the baritone saxophone, and I love making lots and lots of noise. The music I write focuses on exploring emotions and intentions by finding their root cause. I want a listener to somehow move, for their emotions or imaginations to be altered, or even just be moved to tap their toes. My music explores intricate rhythms to encourage a sort of layered listening through grooves, melody, and harmony.”
8. viv by Junghae Lee performed by Lars Mlekusch (this is the correct website, he was a concert saxophonist before starting a career as a conductor). Album: Saxophone Spaces. Viv is a work for baritone sax and live electronics (MAX/MSP, 8 channel) composed in 2005.
9. Vertical Time Study II by Toshio Hosokawa performed by Claude Delangle, Odile Delangle, and Jean Geoffroy. Album: NATSUDA / NODAIRA / HOSOKAWA: Japanese Saxophone Music. About the composer from their publisher, “Toshio Hosokawa was born in Hiroshima on 23 October 1955. Following initial studies in piano and composition in Tokyo, he came to Berlin in 1976 to study composition with Isang Yun at the Universität der Künste. He continued his studies with Klaus Huber at the Hochschule für Musik in Freiburg from 1983 to 1986. In 1980, he participated for the first time in the Darmstädter Ferienkurse für Neue Musik where some of his compositions were performed. […] From 1989 to 1998, the composer was the artistic director and organiser of the annual Akiyoshidai International Contemporary Music Seminar and Festival in Yamagushi which he had co-founded. Since 2001, he has additionally been the artistic director of the Japanese Takefu International Music Festival in Fukuj. He was appointed permanent guest professor at the Tokyo College of Music in 2004. Hosokawa lives in Nagano, Japan and in Mainz, Germany.”
10. BIG Talk by Shelley Washington performed by ~Nois. Album: Kinds of ~Nois.
11. Sax Notes by Paul Steinberg performed by Timothy McAllister. Album: Scena. Let’s just say I’m a sucker for 90s electronic sounds…
12. Where Her Eye Sits by George E. Lewis performed by the Prism Quartet and Tony Arnold. Album: Mending Wall.
13. We Speak Etruscan by Lee Hyla performed by Jan Berry Baker and Kenneth Long. Album: Citizens of Nowhere.
14. Sequenza IXb for Alto Saxophone by Luciano Berio performed by Christian Wirth. Album: Berio Sequenzas. Berio wrote a total of 14 solo works called Sequenzas (Italian: sequence).
15. Retreat performed/improvised by Rhonda Taylor, Steven Leffue, & Grady Kestler. Album: Futures. Unfortunately I can’t find any info on this album, and I’m having to assume these are improvised works.
16. Regeneration performed/improvised by Rhonda Taylor, Steven Leffue, & Grady Kestler. Album: Futures. Unfortunately I can’t find any info on this album, and I’m having to assume these are improvised works.