“Four Pictures from New York”
Roberto Molinelli (b. 1963)
“Four pictures from New York, four images of the most famous and most universal metropolis of the world. I wrote this concerto for saxophone and orchestra inspired by the Big Apple, as it seems to the eyes of a European in love with America and its music and culture.
In Dreamy Dawn, I described the sunrise in a radiant dawn, limpid and serene but modern at the same time: the day breaks with a background of the skyscrapers of Manhattan in an enchanting spectacle.
Tango Club is a piece dedicated to the grand Master of Tango Astor Piazzolla, New Yorker by adoption, written in the style of Argentinian Tango, in which the rhythm is possibly more important and representative of the recent secular past, and imagined in one of the many metropolitan clubs where they play and dance to Latin-American Music.
Sentimental evening, a jazz ballad, is surely particular for the presence of a jazz trio to accompany the saxophone soloist: in fact it is composed of jazz players (piano, double-bass, drums) with accompaniment of strings.
The last movement, Broadway night, represents the exciting night life that enlivens the scintillating streets of Manhattan, the giant and multicolored luminous flashing lights that make Time Square a spectacle of lights and colors, and where outside the famous Broadway Theatres you live and breathe a musical atmosphere.”
Excerpted from Roberto Molinelli’s Program Notes
My Music
Caprice en Forme de Valse
Paul Bonneau (1918-95)
Born in Moret-sur-loing, France, Paul Bonneau’s lengthy career demonstrated his versatility as a composer and a conductor. As a student at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris, he won awards in harmony, fugue, and composition. In 1945 he became the bandmaster of the French Republican Guard Band, a group with duties similar to those of “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band. Upon his resignation from the army, Bonneau became a conductor for the French national broadcasting organization Radiodiffusion- Télévision Française (RTF). With RTF he conducted hundreds of radio broadcasts, specializing in light classical music. During his time with both the Republican Guard and RTF, Bonneau composed prolifically, writing for fifty-one films, eleven ballets, and several operettas. In addition to these dramatic works, he composed substantial works such as Ouverture pour un Drame, a concerto for saxophone and orchestra, and the clever Un Français à New York dedicated to the memory of George Gershwin as an answer to his beloved An American in Paris.
Composed in 1950 for solo saxophone, Bonneau’s Caprice en Forme de Valse takes a brief, rollicking ride through several whimsical themes united by their waltz character. The composer states his thematic segments plainly before proceeding to develop them through variation, transposition, and truncation. Each section presents a snapshot of a waltz, some dancing with effervescence and others singing sweetly. The piece concludes with brief restatements of the opening themes followed by an exuberant coda. Virtuosic in both its compositional ingenuity and technical demands, the Caprice en Forme de Valse endures as one of Bonneau’s most popular compositions.
Excerpted from The President’s Own - Chamber Music Series concert program
The Sweet Notes Strolling Band
What's that you hear? It's the sweetest sounds of live music coming from none other than THE SWEET NOTES! This strolling brass band can be seen AND HEARD throughout the park as you make memories, and they make memorable music! Be sure to listen for... THE SWEET NOTES!
Luke Kranyak, alto saxophone
Coby Heath, trumpet
Matthew Mussmacher, trombone
Caiden Flowers, tuba
Thomas Morris, drums
Paganini Lost
Jun Nagao (b. 1964)
Paganini Lost by Jun Nagao is a discovery for this listener, adding to the ever-growing body of work based on Paganini’s twenty-fourth Caprice (along with Brahms, Rachmaninoff, Witold Lutosławski, Robert Muczynski, and numerous others). A welcome addition in a jazzy idiom, it affords exciting solo moments not only for each saxophonist but also for the pianist, who manages fistfuls of notes and difficult rhythms.
Excerpted from The New York Concert Review
Concerto for Alto Saxophone & Wind Ensemble
David Maslanka (1918-95)
This concerto turned out to be a good deal larger than I would reasonably want. As I got into the composing, the ideas became insistent: none of them would be left out! The format of Songs and Interludes arises from my other recent works for saxophones (“Mountain Roads” for saxophone quartet and “Song Book” for alto saxophone and marimba) and suggests a music that is more intimate than symphonic. There is a strong spiritual overtone with quotes from Bach Chorales, and from my own works “Hell’s Gate” and “Mass.” A story is hinted at which has the Crucifixion right smack in the middle – the climax of the third movement quotes the “Crucifixus” from the “Mass.” I don’t know what the story is, only that it wants to be music, and not words.
Excerpted from David Maslanka’s Program Notes