The newly invented
saxophone made an immediate appeal to
composers of paraphrases, fantasies,
concertante show pieces, conservatoire
test works and the like. It fitted in
with the established primacy of French
wind playing and gave a versatile novelty
to the genre. This disc salutes those
imperatives in fine style. No-one could
really elevate, with any convincing
seriousness, the essentially decorative
nature of the music or its appeal to
anything other than the more fluid and
superficial genres – but what these
works set out to do they do well and
with technical accomplishment.
Jules Demersseman strikes
me as the most accomplished overall
of these composers. He’d been a fellow
student of Adolphe Sax in Brussels and
was in fact two years older than the
innovator. Not only did he compose for
the instrument very early but also he
wrote for a range of instruments, not
just the expected alto. The Fantasie
sur un thème original
begins with a dramatic flourish
and explores register changes in a way
familiar from Conservatoire Flute and
Clarinet test pieces. There’s splendid
virtuosity here and plenty of opportunities
to flaunt some sportive runs. His two
Solos are for baritone and tenor saxophones
– the Second is a competition "tester"
– with opportunities for the soloist
to impress first with legato phrasing
(not easy on a baritone unless you’re
a Harry Carney or Joe Temperley) and
then with the rhythmic élan and
rhythmic dexterity of the final section.
The other pieces generally conform to
the expected models – transcriptions
from Savari on themes from Freischütz,
vivacious variations from Genin (his
Spanishry is typically cod but really
winning) and little genre works such
as Singelée’s Caprice and Fantasie
– the first named of which is a lyric
piece that tests breath control to the
utmost. Both incidentally are played
by Delangle on a soprano. The same composer’s
Concerto (for tenor) is effectively
elegant and melodious and Chic’s Solo
shows off a nice fanfare flourish of
an opening.
The Delangles play
with panache and adroit techniques with
Claude covering the range of saxes –
soprano, alto, tenor and baritone –
with aplomb and a consonant tone. One
can sense the excitement with which
these minor composers – bandsmen, performers,
teachers – seized the opportunity to
write for the new instrument and some
of that vigour still clings to these
versatile performances.
Jonathan Woolf
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Claude Delangle (saxophones) 
