My year has been filled with many projects, elizabethan poetry, jazz anime tunes and electronic music production but in the meantime, I have been slowly chipping away at an even larger work. This saxophone concerto which is yet to be titled as a whole has been a massive project but I am thrilled to have it at least largely completed.
The process has been fun but slow going. I began quite quickly on the first movement which travelled relatively wuickly although I soon discovered that 5 minutes of presto is a lot of music... I went into the project expecting to chip away a few bars at a time finding new themes and methods of expressing the saxophone as I went. As time went on each movement developped into its own style and even sits within different time periods of emulation. There's still an element of clunkyness that I will endeavour to polish before submitting one of the three movements for any further competition consideration in the future.
Onto the Structures:
This work in it's nature of being segmented into movements is inherently sectional in its structure with each movement conveying it's own mood but this also brings elements of developmental composition into play as well. With each movemement being untied from the others, there is a development of new themes and working from one place to another within the generall sectional structure of the piece. There are some recuring thematic semiquaver movements but they are also rather loosly based on each other with large variations to each.
En Route:
The origins of the whole work, this movement was almost entirely through composed. This worked both in the favour and to the detriment of the outcome as while it has some degree of fluidity, what is lacks is the recurring material that is eluded to at the beginning of the act and reappears in the later stages. Instead of this, it has become more of a theme and variations (developmental), though not strictly, in which the material from the beginning which is clearly (ish) stated reappears in different forms. The one thing that has impressed be about beethoven is in listening to his 9th symphony throughout all the movements of which, the 'ode to joy' can be heard subtly in the background parts in one form or another until it is stated most clearly in the final movement.
Daydreams in the Past:
The second movement was an attempt to demonstrate the saxophone in it's beautiful lyrical state. Between the interplay with the basson and flutes, the stringed adagio at the end and the moments inbetween. What began as thinging I would show the extended capabilities of the saxophone, I turned to the creation of beautiful lines that swirl and moveas the music unfolds. The music contains it's sections, the overturesque moment, the adagio for strings moment and the winding interludes but much like the first movement, this was largely through composed and lacks the deliberacy of a more closely planned and more deliberately structured piece of music. I found many of the elements in this movement are yet to be realised and up in the air as I imagine them working knowing th capabilities of a playback generator is not capable of acheiving the desired sound as much as I would like it to do.
Dance of the Stars:
Writing this third movement in the shortest time frame has left some complexity lacking but has also left me quite intrested in the connection that is found in the material. The most strict in form acting as a kind of rondo with the A, B, C themes appearing and reappearing throughout the piece has led this to, despite being the simplest of the movements one of my favourite because of the constant connection between thematic material and the familiarity of the dance. This movement was designed to be a light hearted ending to the concerto to cap off what has been filled with moments of quite intest darkness and not the most 'pleasant' listening at times. This was designed to be aleatoric of the shimmering and dancing of star which, for such a common trope, I often ponder why we consider stars to be dancing. Despite the odd nature of the concept, I took the normal image the stars to be frolicing through the sky but also the darker side to the burning and the seemingly untidiness and chaos of space whoing through at various times.
The Results:
As what I'm considering my first real attempt of a larger orchestral work presented in a notated format, I am pleased with this result but I know it has a long way to go. Theres mess and a lack of fluidity at time which needs correcting and as I have had pointed out during the semester, more could be done to create a virtuosic and idiomatic piece for the soprano saxophone. This is not the final iteration and this will continue to grow into the following year when it is submitted for the ROSL composition competition and beyond.
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