Duo Otto E Quindici - Fitkin, Bozza, Schulhoff, Swerts, Milhaud: Hot Sax (Saxophone Works of 20th Century) (2020)

A justly famous cartoon by Walt Disney, Music Land (1935) depicts a Romeo-and-Juliet story whose protagonists are musical instruments: the two rivalling family are based on two neighbouring islands, one consecrated to classical music, and the other to jazz. The two young lovers are, therefore, a slightly odd couple with a “female” violin and a “male” saxophone. Nearly a century after its creation (c.1840), thus, the saxophone had already become the embodiment of the alternative to classical music.

The saxophone owes its name to Adolphe Sax, who developed a range of instruments (collectively indicated as saxophones) taking inspiration from several pre-existing wind instruments but creatively combining them so as to realize a unique and innovative woodwind. Sax obtained patents for fourteen kinds of saxophones, although some of them did not stand the test of time. Ultimately, only the B-flat and E-flat families were really successful, and they constitute the overwhelming majority of saxophone presently in use. Sax’s instruments and their later developments possessed a smoothness of sound similar to that of the clarinet, but also a more penetrant and powerful sound, and an extreme flexibility both on the mechanical and on the musical plane; thus, they allowed both the touching expression of singing qualities and the brilliant virtuosity in dazzling passages. For these and for similar reasons, the saxophone was quickly adopted by military and marching bands; through these, it conquered America, and became – as in Disney’s cartoon – the musical symbol of a new music. Through its mellow sound, combined with the energy it possessed, it became one of the favourite instruments of jazz music and of other genres which alternated moments of deep passion with others of lightness and flashiness.

The fact that saxophones are irreplaceable protagonists of jazz music is indisputable, and Disney’s cartoon purposefully exploit this established association in order to visually and aurally embody the opposition of “classical” and “non-classical” in the love-story it depicts. However, at the beginning of their history, saxophones belonged in the same “island” as the violins (there were classes of saxophone at the Conservatory of Paris until 1870); and though classical music did not ultimately welcome them as wholeheartedly as other genres did, there is an august tradition of classical music for the saxophone which should not be forgotten (to cite just one example among the many, Maurice Ravel used the saxophone very idiomatically in two of his iconic works: Boléro and the orchestration of Mussorgskij’s Pictures at an Exhibition). In these pieces, saxophones are used both for their lyrical and intense sound and for the exotic flavour they bring to the music; it is therefore rather unsurprising that these same qualities fascinated Darius Milhaud (1892-1974) who was a Frenchman like Ravel, and like him, belonged in the classical tradition but was open to influences from a variety of styles and genres.

Milhaud’s Scaramouche brilliantly combines an exotic inspiration with the most refined styles of French music: it is not by chance that his encounters with traditional Brazilian music can be dated back to 1917-19, when Milhaud served in Brazil as the secretary to the local French Ambassador (who was, incidentally, none other than the great poet Paul Claudel). Just as the two men represented their country and its culture abroad, so several of Milhaud’s “Brazilian” works build cultural bridges across the Atlantic.

Scaramouche op. 165 (1937-9) came to life following a request by Marguerite Long, one of the most important French pianists and teacher, who wished two of her former students (i.e. Marcelle Meyer and Ida Jankelevitch) to play it on the occasion of a Universal Exposition. After the original version for two pianos, the piece was transcribed for solo clarinet or saxophone and orchestra; many other versions, mostly apocryphal, followed suit.

The first and third movements were adapted by Milhaud from his recent stage-music for a children’s play called Le medécin volant; the play had been performed at the Théâtre Scaramouche, which lent its name to the entire composition. The second movement comes instead from Bolivar op. 148, composed in 1935. The composer did not nourish great expectations for his piece; indeed, he discouraged his publisher from printing it and offering it to the public: “I thought”, wrote Milhaud, “that no one would ever play it. However, my publisher had a very peculiar character; he would never print anything except what he liked. He was particularly fond of Scaramouche; he thought it sounded well. The future would prove him right!”. Indeed, Scaramouche possesses a unique verve, a distinctive charm and the rare quality of imprinting itself indelibly in the listener’s memory, thanks to its lively rhythms, ironic style, and constant (and very amusing) musical quarrelling of the two instruments.

Part of this irony and witticism possibly came to Milhaud from his Jewish family; indeed, he had to leave Europe during the Nazi persecution of the Jews, and could only come back to France after its liberation. Erwin Schulhoff (1894-1942), another Jewish composer, underwent instead the full horror of the Shoah, dying of tuberculosis in a Bavarian concentration camp. He was, indeed, the ideal target of the abominable violence of the Nazis, not only for his Jewish descent, but also for his Communist sympathies (he had even wrote a musical version of the Communist Manifesto), for his appreciation of jazz music (which he cleverly interwove in his works) and for the ironic and satirical Dadaism of his works and of their titles.

Schulhoff’s Hot Sonate for alto saxophone and piano is possibly one of the most representative works of the jazz period of its composer. Schulhoff had familiarized himself with jazz from a rather early date, and had even published a textbook of jazz piano; in 1930, he performed the Sonata’s premiere together with the British saxophone player Billy Barton. As Joseph Bek put it, “In comparison with other jazz-inspired works, this one deserves a higher ranking. The jazz elements are integrated within the structures of the classical Sonata form, without depriving the piece of its jazz character, of its spontaneity and lightness. Typical elements are the combination of pentatonic scales, harmonies of fourth and fifth, parallel chordal motions, polyrhythmic elements and a motoric accompaniment”.

Also Eugène Bozza (1905-1991), who was Milhaud’s and Schulhoff’s junior by about ten years, had undergone the deep impression made on European listeners by jazz music; however, remained one of his numerous sources of inspiration. His Aria for alto saxophone and piano is unquestionably his best-known piece, and its evident model is the style of Johann Sebastian Bach (with clear references to the third movement of his Pastorale in F major BWV 590). The piece was written by Bozza during his stay in Villa Medici in Rome as the award-winner of the Prix de Rome, and it was dedicated to Marcel Mule, one of the most celebrated saxophone players of the era. Bozza was particularly at ease with the language of wind music (even though his instrumental training had been as a violinist), and manages to exploit the particular technique of the saxophone in an extremely competent manner; the piece’s lyrical style requires considerable technical skills, and contributes to making it one of the repertoire’s milestones.

More than fifty years separate the three composers hitherto mentioned from the following two: Piet Swerts was born in 1960 while Graham Fitkin is three years his junior. Swerts, a Belgian composer, is a preeminent figure in the contemporary music of his country and has achieved international fame; his vast catalogue encompasses all genres of chamber music and symphonic music, and his works for saxophone are numerous. Klonos was commissioned by the Tromp Music Competition of Eindhoven in 1993; it is titled after a Greek word referring, as the composer put it, to “a cramp-like contraction of the muscles, associated with the heavy movements that some saxophonists make during the fire of playing (for example, think about free jazz)…The work is… a bravura-like fantasy with a more subtle, yet intense middle section. Klonos finishes with a wild, even more virtuosic reprise. For the gifted saxophonist, it is quite a ride”.

Also Gate by Graham Fitkin is “quite a ride” in its own style. Written in 2001, it is described by its composer as follows: “This piece started from one thing – a trill. The alternation of two adjacent notes gives rise to a simple and constant grouping of beats. Place it in different temporal contexts and the inherent quality of the trill is questioned”. The trill is first heard at the piano, in the form of an ostinato repetition of semiquavers: this hypnotic movement suggests the minimalist style which has frequently been associated with the composer’s language. Here, the vibrating quality of the saxophone’s sound is explored thoroughly, giving the piece a particularly enthralling style.

Thus, the entire palette of the saxophone and of its combination with the piano is explored in this programme; and, to come back to the Disney cartoon cited above, it should be said that the saxophone seems at ease in a great variety of different contexts, ranging from the South-American rhythms of Milhaud to Schulhoff’s jazz to the gorgeous atmospheres of Bozza’s pieces and to the most innovative explorations of the younger composers.

Album Notes by Chiara Bertoglio