Phonetasy by the Rollin' Phones on Phono
Suecia - the over-zealous work of a trendy marketing phonatic?
Be that as it may, what lies beneath the uncommunicative, nay
miscommunicative, CD cover is a wealth of intriguing,
sometimes excellent music.
There will be those who will never listen to saxophone quartets
on principle - the principle being, presumably, that they are
bound to sound jazzy, muzak-like or plain unpleasant. Yet a
lot can be achieved with a soprano, alto, tenor and baritone
saxophone - the higher registers can sound uncannily like clarinets
and oboes, the lower registers bassoon-like - especially in
the hands (and mouths) of the masterly Swedish Saxophone Quartet
a.k.a. the Rollin' Phones, who have been going strong since
1986. And to their credit, all the works on the disc have been
commissioned by them over the last fifteen years or so.
Anders Nilsson's Phonetasy is a good choice to open the
programme. It is inventive, varied and marvellously lyrical,
with many moments of real beauty. It is a hard work to follow,
and Niklas Breman's Dinkum Thinkum II is probably the
worst choice. The title comes, as it happens, from the name
of a machine, in a story by Robert Heinlein, that starts to
think and ask existential questions. There is a deliberately
strong rhythmic roboticness to this piece which, however, starts
to sound repetitive and wearying by the second hearing.
The Saxophone Quartet no.1 by Gunnar Jansson, the oldest
featured composer - and probably the only one to have written
a saxophone sextet! - is a straightforwardly attractive work,
as traditional as a quartet for saxophones written in the 1990s
can be. Plenty of ideas, plenty of strong melodies and harmonies,
a satisfying whole.
Fredrik Söderberg describes the inspiration for his Ocellatus
as "fish, a bit of jazz and a little Philip Glass": if nothing
else, curiosity should attract listeners. Ocellatus is a type
of fish with a strange rutting ritual involving the burial of
mollusc shells, and this Söderberg somehow attempts to
capture in his music, with the help of "two or three deliberately
monotonous themes" (hence, presumably, the Philip Glass reference).
This piece was actually commissioned by the Rollin' Phones themselves
in 2001, and is much more action-packed and worthwhile than
it Söderberg's description suggests, with the various percussion
sounds adding an extra dimension - Söderberg really does
succeed in evoking the peculiar seabed shenanigans of ocellatus.
Continuing the watery theme, the Siren of Marie Samuelsson's
work is of the nymph variety, with the original idea being that
the baritone would represent the ship's foghorn and the other
three instruments the sirens, bewitching and luring. Samuelsson
changed her mind about this idea during composition, but listening
to the music it is hard not to picture such a scene. All four
saxes play leggiero throughout, lending the piece a fog-bound,
mesmerising feel.
Jan Levander is represented by two works, though Lullaby
to Katja Marie is little over three minutes long. He wrote
this for his two-year-old daughter, and describes the piece
as "a kind of game in which you have to follow the melody through
the different sizes of saxophone." Augmented by some light percussion,
this is a tuneful little work, easy on the ears of a youngster
about to nod off. The same cannot be said about Levander's other
work, Nisse (George), also for quartet and percussion,
which is both the most modernistic work, and the most postmodernist,
and the jazziest, on the disc! According to the composer, the
five movements can be played in any order, with various other
leeways for the performers, the idea being that each performance
should be unique. The Rollin' Phones, who commissioned the work
in 2001, play the five sections A (Back), B (Bottom), C (One
Side), D (Front), E (Other Side) here in the order A, E, D,
C, B, which means it starts off well - for those who enjoy expressionistic
music, at least - and then more or less gets worse as the work
progresses. A and E and C are the modernist pieces, D begins
Kurt Weillishly but soon turns to the clichés of jazz
funk, with an over-the-top drum presence, and B, said by Levander
to have a "hiphop beat", has even more tediously repetitive
jazz/ethnic drumming.
The recording quality in the soundproof studio is excellent,
with the saxophones ideally balanced.
The booklet is also excellent - glossy pages, photos, informative
and varied notes, including a short interview with Neta Norén,
commentaries on each piece by their composers, brief but informative
biographies on the Quartet and each of the composers, full track
information - and all this in a clear font on a clean background.
Byzantion
Swedish Saxophone Quartet 'Rollin' Phones' (Tove Nyland (soprano
saxophone); Kristin Uglar (alto saxophone); Helena Friman (tenor
saxophone); Neta Norén (baritone saxophone); Daniel Saur
(percussion)) 
