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Here is a provocatively
attractive and varied collection that
should appeal to saxophone buffs as
well as enthusiasts of these composers
and this style-genre. With the exception
of the Debussy these are all uncommon
works and will attract interest ...
and more.
The Tomasi shows
Tassot as a soloist able to coax honey
and amber from the sax. The legato phrasing
is notable slightly coloured with a
jazzy voice. The music has the motion
of sea-wrack and deep green tones. The
second episode is more animated with
a ‘Bolero’ stomp. The brass can be scaldingly
Baxian and the boiling climaxes at 7.01
and 11.15 are redolent of La Valse
(again a Ravel cross-reference).
Soon we return to the warbling and rough-rolling
brass - a little like Messiaen meets
Bax. There are only two movements the
second of which starts with a sinister
Baxian chase. This is extremely effective
music also reminding me of the music
of Louis Aubert (the superb Tombeau
de Chateaubriand - hear it on Marco
Polo) and the melodramatic Bernard Herrmann.
Tomasi is well worth dedicated exploration
and persistence as the Lyrinx CD (LYR
227) also reviewed
here further bears out. I have been
working on a review of his gorgeous
opera Don Juan for several months
now.
I was much looking
forward to the Caplet having
heard his scorchingly imaginative and
tragic Epiphanie for cello and
orchestra last
year. This Légende
dates from much earlier in the composer's
short life at a time when the saxophone
enjoyed its first solo celebrity. It
is a rhapsodically extended piece with
a pleasing serenading character but
without the scorch and acid of Epiphanie.
The work was uncovered as recently as
1988 by Londeix. This is the first recording
of its version with orchestra. The version
for saxophone and alto saxophone, string
quintet, oboe, clarinet and bassoon
(1903) was recorded by Arno Bornkamp
(saxophone) on Brilliant 6476.
It has the liquidly mellifluous yearn
and yield of the Glazunov concerto crossed
with the idyllic Delius. The Absil
is the most recent piece here, light
on the palate but a little dry.
Marius Constant
had a French father and a Rumanian
mother. He studied in Paris with Tony
Aubin and Olivier Messiaen. He also
studied with Jean Fournet (whose outstanding
Debussy on Supraphon Archive, I have
just reviewed)
and Arthur Honegger. While we Brits
brag about BBC Radio 3 and its illustrious
predecessor, The Third Programme, France
had ‘France Musique’, a station which
grew under Constant’s direction. The
Musique de Concert is for sax
plus three each woodwind and brass plus
strings, piano and percussion. The whole
thing is done in just over ten minutes
across five varied and jewelled movements
in which the musical influences are
compendious from Swingle-style Bach,
to jazz, to avant-garde alienation,
to rhythmic and dissonant ‘pepper’.
Finally comes the Debussy. This
is all plush and dripping honey, gurgling
dances and warm dawns. The orchestra
score a wondrous warmth at 2.19.
That’s four of the
five pieces appearing here in world
premiere recordings. The Debussy provides
the ‘sheet anchor’ of comparative familiarity.
I really liked this
collection. It is well played in every
department. The selection reflects an
audacity and valour rare in today’s
industry.
Rob Barnett
Dominique Tassot (saxophone)