Sonata for Alto Saxophone
(1998, rev. 2002)
12:30
alto saxophone and piano
Notes
When I first composed this saxophone sonata five years ago, I had an unfortunate notion that I had created a mediocre piece. Shortly after hearing its first performance, the sonata was shelved. It wasn't until the summer of 2002 that I looked anew at this work and discovered, much to my surprise, that I actually found myself liking it! It was decided then that it was time to resurrect this earlier work of mine - clean off some of the dust and cobwebs so to speak.
This work is decidedly classical in nature, borrowing both from classical form and classical texture. The harmonic language is more quartal and quintal rather than the traditional tertian language, with a strong sense of key centricity. These are qualities that many of my more recent works employ as well, with the exception of my harmonic language which has grown into a form of un-traditional tertian based language.
While this is a revised version of the work, very little has actually been changed. A couple of technical glitches in the piece were corrected, and the score was cleaned up considerably. However, the notes are, for the most part, the same as they were back in the original version.
Premiered by Luis Gascón
April 4, 1999
Music 106
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA
Audio
Sonata for Alto Saxophone Mvt. 1
Sonata for Alto Saxophone Mvt. 2
Sonata for Alto Saxophone Mvt. 3
PDF Score excerpt