Ballades for Saxophone and Orchestra
Tomasi • Martin • Ravel • Piazzolla • Dragatakis • Iturralde
Of Corsican descent, Henri Tomasi was born in 1901 in
Marseilles, where he studied before entering the Paris Conservatoire. There he
was a composition pupil of Paul Vidal, winning the Prix de Rome in 1927. He
also studied with D’Indy. He established himself as a conductor and as a
composer for the theatre, with a series of concertos that displayed his very
considerable powers of orchestration. He wrote his Ballade for alto
saxophone and orchestra in 1938 for his
friend Marcel Mule, one of the leading saxophonists in France. In form and
inspiration the work follows the tradition of the fourteenth-century ballade of
the medieval troubadours, with the solo saxophone taking the rôle of the clown.
The work is based on a poem by Suzanne Malard, Tomasi’s wife:
Sur un vieux thème anglais, long maigre et flegmatique
comme lui
un clown raconte son histoire spleenétique
à la nuit.
L’ombre de son destin, le long des quais zigzague
et le goût
de mégot qu’en sa bouche ont pris de vieilles blagues
le rend fou.
Fuir son habit trop large et sa chair monotone
en n’étant
entre la joie et la douleur, qu’un saxophone
hésitant !
Son désespoir, au fond d’une mare sonore
coule à pic.
Et le clown se résigne à faire rire encore
le public.
[On an old English theme, long, thin and phlegmatic
like him
a clown tells his melancholy tale
to the night.
The shadow of his fate, the length of the zigzagging quays
and the taste
of the fag-end that in his mouth has taken up old jests
makes him mad.
To get away from his coat, too big, and his dull flesh
while only being,
between joy and sorrow, a saxophone
hesitating!
His despair, to the bottom of a sounding pool
sinks right down.
And the clown resigns himself again to making
the public laugh.]
The saxophone is well adapted to this rôle, expressing
feelings between laughter and tears, ranging from dramatic despair to the
dynamic heights.
The Swiss composer Frank Martin was born in Geneva in 1890,
the tenth and youngest child of a Calvinist minister. He later based his career
there, as he developed his own original voice as a prolific composer in many
genres. His Ballade for alto saxophone, strings, percussion and piano was
written in 1938 and dedicated to Sigurd Rascher, providing an important
addition to contemporary saxophone repertoire. The composer himself wrote: ‘To
surround and carry the saxophone I chose a string orchestra, with percussion
and piano. Since the saxophone holds a central place among wind instruments in
some way between the brass and the woodwind, other wind instruments would have
each had a more characteristic sound and would have damaged its independence.
The piano and percussion, on the other hand, could only help to bring out its
singing voice’. The mood of the solo instrument ranges from the elegiac to the
commanding, producing a very robust sound. The Ballade is one of a series of
such works and was followed, over the years, by similar compositions for flute,
piano, trombone, cello, and viola, the last of these in 1973, the year before
his death.
(based on notes by Jean-Marie Londeix)
The French composer Maurice Ravel had a close affinity with
Spain, largely through his maternal ancestry. His father was of Swiss origin,
while his mother came from the Basque country. He first used the pattern of the
Habanera in his two-piano Sites auriculaires of 1895-97, orchestrating that
movement, to his own later dissatisfaction, for his Rapsodie espagnole,
completed in 1908. His Vocalise-étude en forme de habanera was written for a
Paris Conservatoire examination in 1907, and has, since then, been the basis of
many arrangements. The version for saxophone and orchestra is by Arthur Hoérée.
The name of the Argentinian composer Astor Piazzolla is
inextricably connected with the art of the tango, in particular his own nuevo
tango, which incorporated other elements from contemporary classical
compositional techniques and from jazz. Born in Mar del Plata in 1921, he went
with his family to New York in 1924, returning only in 1937 to Buenos Aires,
where he appeared, as he had as a child, in concerts as a bandoneón player and
took composition lessons from Ginastera. He established his own orchestra in
1944, studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris ten years later, formed various
ensembles again in Buenos Aires, later returning to make his home in Paris. He
died in Buenos Aires in 1992. Piazzolla had a particular affection for the
saxophone, and had appeared with performers such as Malligan and D’Rivera. The
Suite for saxophone and orchestra opens with a Preludio, written in 1987 for
the stage show Tango apasionado. The theme of the Fuga, beginning with the
saxophone, followed by the strings, is taken from the operetta María de Buenos
Aires. The violin introduces Misterio, followed by a saxophone tango
improvisation and the Fugata follows the pattern of the earlier fugal texture,
ending in a free saxophone improvisation. Oblivión, from the sound-track of the
film Henry IV, is regarded as one of the most sensational tangos, with a solo
element providing an opportunity for a display of expressivity. Adios Nonino,
written on the death of the composer’s father in 1959, begins with the heavy footsteps
of death approaching and soon after the strings present the theme, which
develops in various rhythms, to end in a peaceful jazz improvisation from the
saxophone, summoning the cellos, to open the well known melody of Libertango.
The adaptation of this suite is by Theodore Kerkezos.
Dimitris Dragatakis was born in Epiros in 1914. He studied
the violin in the National Conservatory in Athens and is considered one of the
most important Greek composers with a personal musical idiom that is both
mature and laconic. Influenced by the musical traditions of his country and of
ancient Greek drama, his music came to reflect his interest in new techniques,
developing a free atonal style of writing. The winner of a number of major
prizes, he taught advanced harmony at the Greek National Conservatory for
twenty years, until 1997, when he was appointed vice-president. He was for some
years a violist in the Opera Orchestra, and later served on the board of the
Greek National Opera, and was vice-president and honorary president of the
Greek Composers Union. He died in 2001. The Ballade or Lullaby for saxophone
and strings was written in 2000 and at first intended for violin and piano. In
its present form it was dedicated to Theodore Kerkezos and was first performed
as an encore at the Athens Megaron Concert Hall in March 2002 with the Athens
State Orchestra. The Ballade is a tonal piece, very different from the
composer’s usual style, showing the influence of his native region. Although it
is short the composer makes full use of the range of the saxophone, without
sacrificing its romanticism.
The Spanish composer Pedro Iturralde was born in 1929 and
began his musical studies with his father, making his first professional
engagements as a saxophonist at the age of eleven. He graduated from the Royal
Conservatory of Music in Madrid, where he studied clarinet, piano and harmony.
He went on to lead his own jazz quartet at the W. Jazz Club in Madrid,
experimenting with the combined use of flamenco and jazz, and making recordings
for the Blue Note label. In 1972 he undertook further study in harmony and
arrangement at Berklee College of Music in Boston. He taught the saxophone at
the Madrid Conservatory from 1978 until his retirement in 1994, and has
appeared in Spain and abroad as a soloist with the Spanish National Orchestra
conducted by de Burgos, Celibidache and Markevitch among others. He composed
his Czárdás when he was twenty and dedicated the present version of the work to
his friend Theodore Kerkezos. It follows the pattern of the traditional
Hungarian dance, with a slow introduction, lassu, and a lively continuation,
friss. The orchestration is by the
composer’s brother Javier.
