Classical Music | Music for Saxophone

Recorded on 04/30/2014, uploaded on 09/25/2014

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Paul Creston’s Sonata for saxophone and piano is an early work, composed in 1939, just a half dozen or so years after Creston really committed himself to a career writing music.  The work is written for E flat saxophone and has three movements, the headings of which are in common-sense English, as espoused by a handful of American composers in the 1930s and '40s, rather than the traditional Italian. Movement 1 is marked "With vigor" and is appropriately filled with vivacious rhythms; short, pointed gestures are balanced against long legato lines, both types of material having been built using Creston’s usual richly chromatic, thickly harmonized tonal idiom. "With tranquility," the second movement, is a lovely A major instrumental song in 5/4 time, while "With gaiety," the D major finale, is crisp and decisive, but not necessarily loud. In the finale, a wonderfully greasy central melodic episode (marked "smooth") slows things down for a while.      Notes by Blair Johnstone

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.