«
Parcours en Duo »
for
Baritone Saxophone, four Kettledrums and Vibraphone
To Jean-Pierre
Caens
2001
Duration : 6 minutes 30 to 7 minutes
This piece
was composed on Jean-Pierre Caenss instigation. It is he who suggested
the ingenious association of the Baritone Saxophone with Percussion instruments.
The extent of musical possibilities offered by the Saxophones considerably
widened during the last decades : the regular international meetings between
saxophonists certainly were somewhat stimulating and encouraged very interesting
technical progresses, under the influence of ethnic musics, jazz, and
electro-acoustic or electronic experimental musics. The parameters of
the Saxophone were clearly listed in various publications, notably by
Jean-Marie Londeix or Daniel Kientzi.
« Parcours en Duo », while refusing everything of sound effect
nature, is composed for a Baritone Saxophone which has really acquired
flexibility and lightness, and has enlarged its range towards high pitches,
and distanced itself from what teaching used to be in the French classic
tradition.
Here it is made use of a wide variety of tone quality and type of attack.
In this music, coloured modal sets arise : they are always invented modes,
based on restricted scales.
However from time to time the Saxophone is cast for an expressive role
: it concerns short fragments of sentences which evoke a spoken voice
charged with emotion. Then micro-tones are used while the music momentarily
stops being supported by the tempered chromatic scale.
The piece finds its form through juxtaposed sequences which unfold so
as to always explore new horizons. The last one makes the music return
quite naturally towards elements already heard at the opening of the piece.
The percussion contributes with imitations, echoes and reverberating sounds.
Above all it allows real dialogues with the Saxophone to be established.
Unpublished
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