Sonata For Alto Saxophone And Piano

alt sax, pno
Duration: 15:00
Date of Composition: 2003

PROGRAM NOTES:

The first question many listeners have about a new piece is:  “What style is the piece in?”  By this they usually mean, “Is it tonal or atonal?”  I can give no comforting, definite answer to this question since the Saxophone-Piano Sonata is clearly a mixture; atonal sections devolve into tonal passages, and visa versa.  Often the sax plays tonal snippets while the piano accompanies with both tonal and stringent chords and incongruent sections in a distinctly keyboard idiom.

The First Movement exemplifies many of the stylistic points made in the above paragraph.  Much of the saxophone part consists of diatonic phrases (with an errant note here and there to prevent any firm tonality) which almost overlap, while the piano finds many dissonances that hint at jazz chords.

Scherzando literally means “joking” or “playfully.”  Here the joking and the play turn into rough-house at times, but the style remains within the realm of the traditional scherzo.

The last movement involves some of the most difficult and complicated musical techniques.  It also contains some of the fastest music, as in a familiar Finale-Allegro.

The Sonata for Alto Saxophone and Piano was commissioned by the conductor, Glen Adsit, for the birthday of his wife, the alto sax virtuoso, Carrie Koffman. 

James Sellars

12 February 2007

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