« Trois Petits Préludes »
« Three short Preludes »
for alto saxophone in Eb and piano

Dedicated to Claude Delangle
Total duration : 10 minutes
1985

This score was commissioned by the Ministry of Culture for an educational purpose.

The first prelude, « Nostalgico »,
that can be played early in the current of the curriculum, unfolds a very simple song, the a-tonal melody of which is sustained by a chromatic scale. Although there is no tonic, there are insistent privileged notes.
The piano’s role consists in making a halo of reverberating sounds around the saxophone’s line.
The piece aims at being a training for phrasing and legato in the medium register.

The second prelude, « Andante »,
suits to slightly more experienced performers.
Written in dialogue, it is a training for several kinds of « détaché », stresses and portando in law and medium register.
In this piece the two instrumentalists are obliged to carefully listen to each other.

The third prelude, « Lirico »,
already needs a high competence in the instrument.
It can evoke a choreographic game, in a delicate and elegant atmosphere, of two people who imitate and echo each other, withdraw, then rejoin each other again.
The saxophone ends the piece on a complaining tone.

Except in the first prelude, there is no regular beat . The score is written in proportional notation.

Lemoine Publisher, Claude Delangles’s collection

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