Sunday, June 21, 2015

That Saxophone Quartet ...

... is officially finished - for real, this time. 

A long time ago (in a far away land) Paul Bro asked me to write a quartet for the Chicago Saxophone Quartet. I never got a confirmation from him that they would perform it if I wrote it, nor was there any talk of a commission fee. At some point, I got some ideas and wrote them down. There was enough for a whole movement there, but I never got around to assembling it.

Several years ago, when I was teaching students how to use Sibelius, I gave each member of the class a page to typeset as an exercise in expanded techniques - all but the last page for some reason - either that or the person assigned the last page never turned in the assignment. About a year later, I appended the files together and considered it finished, but I didn't think I liked it enough to try to peddle for performances.

Lately, I have been reorganizing my manuscripts, and ran across it. I figured I had a little time to play with it, and decided to clean it up. I'm not sure I really like the beginning - I need to hear it - it's a style I was exploring in the mid-90s, but I've decided that I do like most of it.

It's not easy. Part of it is very fast (possibly too fast) and there are a number of quarter tones.

It's also too short to publish on CreateSpace - and not close enough to pad it with blank pages. I'm not sure what to do with it yet - add a title page and performance notes to get it up to 14 pages, and then put a 10 sample pages of From Her Husband's Hand and Inner Sanctum? I could put a few pages of Remembering the Night Sky in, too, but that isn't published yet, and I'm thinking of revising it first.

If anyone is interested in playing it, just send me an email.

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