Percy GRAINGER (1882-1961)
Music for Saxophones
Joyce Griggs (saxophones)
Casey Gene Dieriam (piano)
rec. Foellinger Great Hall, Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, Urbana, Illinois, USA, March 2013, April 2014
NAXOS 8.573228 [49:48]
Full disclosure: since my high school and college band days as a back-stand clarinettist, I've loved the saxophone, for its distinctive hybrid timbre, between brass and woodwind, and its intrinsic expressiveness, which you might forget about, hearing its pushed tone in jazz and swing bands. And I've enjoyed Percy Grainger's music since college, when we all had to master the harmonic and rhythmic intricacies of his formidable Lincolnshire Posy. So this album called out to me.
The title - "Percy Grainger - Music for Saxophones" - suggests a collection of the man's original compositions, but in fact only two such are included here: one for saxophone ensemble, one for solo alto sax with piano accompaniment. The rest of the program comprises Grainger's arrangements of other people's music for saxophones in various numbers and combinations, including the less commonly heard soprano and bass instruments.
The other prominent billing goes to Joyce Griggs, who, the booklet tells us, "located manuscript works of Percy Grainger's saxophone chamber music" in 2007 and edited what we hear here. In The Lonely Desert-Man, for alto sax and piano, we can hear that she is an adept, expressive player; curiously, we don't get to hear that elsewhere. Although she also plays alto sax in the Machaut arrangement, she's billed as "Alto 2"; everywhere else, where she plays the tenor instrument, her own part is largely buried under a couple of higher-pitched ones. (A sharp ear might be able to follow her particular line in fugal passages, but it's almost impossible to do so in chords.) In short, she confidently subordinates her solo role to ensemble requirements; obviously, she wants this to be a showcase for the music, rather than for herself.
The program skews heavily toward the Earlye Musicke end of history, but the ear quickly becomes accustomed to the distinctly non-"period" instruments. Many of those selections - including the Josquin, billed as a chaconne -are fugal: the uniform saxophone timbre provides aural cohesion, with the different registers supplying the contrast. I'd previously known the March in D from Bach's Anna Magdalena Notebook only from Wanda Landowska's brisk, efficient harpsichord version; the slower rendition here, with jolly dotted rhythms, is very different. Some surprising dissonances in the Lawes six-part fantasy, and the occasional "advanced" harmonies elsewhere, remind us that Renaissance and Baroque composers weren't necessarily interested in purity, though some of their fans might prefer to think so.
Grainger's own two pieces: the steady, choralelike Immovable Do and the aforementioned alto-and-piano piece, are brief and effective. Folksong also comes into play. Grainger would later incorporate a fuller arrangement of the chipper Lisbon into Lincolnshire Posy. Sparre Olsen's Når jola kjem appears not only in two keys but in two different arrangements, for two different saxophone trios: the "High Key" rolls along in triplets; the "Low Key" is slower and more even.
Griggs and her enthusiastic collaborators - in the 1970s, they might have been "Joyce Griggs and Friends" - bring everything off with accuracy and rhythmic alertness. Clean, unanimous accents reflect their unified interpretive outlook. They project the irregular scansions of Claude Le Jeune's La bel' Aronde with assurance, making it a shapely modern take on this very old piece. Bach's Prelude in D precisely balances formality and improvisatory freedom, and the pyramid cadences peal joyously; in the ensuing Fugue, the close-position chords are luscious. The soprano sax in The Immovable Do and Angelus ad Virginum has silvery, clarinetlike timbres. In The Lonely Desert-Man, pianist Casey Gene Dierlam is on top of the very busy accompaniment at the start, and the chords in the second section are crisp.
The engineering captures the rich, full ensemble sound - the organlike sonorities of the Lawes register particularly well. A modicum of ambient overhang doesn't compromise aural clarity. The program has been ordered intelligently, whether by Griggs or the producers: the clear textures of John Jenkins's Fantasy are all the more striking for following the expansive sounds - supported by baritone and bass saxes - of Bach's Fugue No. IV (sic) from Book I of the Well-Tempered Clavier.
Stephen Francis Vasta
stevedisque.wordpress.com/blog
Contents
Percy GRAINGER (1882-1961)
The Immovable Do (1933-9) [4:44]
The Lonely Desert-Man Sees the Tents of the Happy Tribes (1949) [2:24]
Claude LE JEUNE (c. 1528-1600)
La Bel' Aronde (dates unknown) [3:02]
Guillaume de MACHAUT (c. 1300-1377)
Ballade No. 17 (arr. Grainger, 1942) [2:48]
Johann Sebastian BACH (1685-1750)
The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II: Prelude and Fugue No. 5 in D (c. 1740, arr. 1943) [6:14, 2:45]
The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I: Fugue No. IV (c. 1722, arr. 1943) [3:31]
Alfonso FERRABOSCO II (1575-1628)
The Four Note Pavan (c. 1610, arr. 1944) [4:05]
Sparre OLSEN (1903-1984)
Når jola kjem in High Key (arr. 1943) [1:19]
Når jola kjem in Low Key (arr. 1943) [1:20]
Josquin DESPREZ (c. 1450-1521)
La Bernardina (arr. 1943) [1:21]
John JENKINS (1592-1678)
5-Part Fantasy No. 15 in D (dates unknown) [3:53]
Carl Philip Emanuel BACH (1714-1788)
Four Pieces for Anna Magdalena Bach, H.I. (ed. Dolmetsch) (1725, arr. 1946) [1:43]
Anonymous
Lisbon (folksong) (arr. 1943) [1:20]
Angelus ad Virginem (c. 1200, arr. 1942) [1:48]
William LAWES (1602-1645)
6-Part Fantasy (arr. 1937) [7:31]
Other performers
J. Michael Holmes, Phil Pierick, Jesse Dochnahl, Adam Hawthorne, Drew Whiting, Ben Kenis, Adrianne Honnold (saxophones)
