Claude Delangle

Conceived under the sign of the sun, this is a series of works for saxophone and orchestra by French composers with a special affinity for the Mediterranean, its atmosphere and culture(s). From Florent Schmitt’s Légende, with its Orientalistic inspiration, over the Provencal scenes of Paule Maurice to Ravel’s pavane for a dead Spanish princess (arranged by Tami Nodaira), the programme covers the entire length of the Mediterranean basin. Indeed, with the samba rhythms of Milhaud’s Scaramouche it even crosses the Atlantic, in accordance with that composer’s vision of an imaginary, ideal Provence, ‘stretching from Constantinople to Rio de Janeiro’.

Chronologically, this programme of music for wind ensemble is framed by Darius Milhaud’s La création du monde, a ballet score from 1923, and the composer Anders Emilsson’s Salute the band, commissioned for the 2006 centenary of the Swedish Wind Ensemble. The remaining four compositions are all concertante works, featuring the French saxophone virtuoso Claude Delangle. The disc opens with Catch Me If You Can, based on a film score by John Williams, inspired by the progressive jazz movement of the 1960s. Jazz was an important source of inspiration for Milhaud as well, but in the case of La création – a retelling of an African creational myth – it was the kind of jazz that he heard in Harlem during a visit to New York in the early 1920’s.

The collaboration between composer Philippe Leroux and the husband-and-wife team of Claude and Odile Delangle began in the early 1990s and has grown ever closer over the years. In October 2019 the three met up again for a few intense days, in order to record Noûs, a programme of works for soprano saxophone and for solo piano. The disc is bookended by two duos for the instruments – the opening SPP a reworking by the composer of an earlier score, and the closing Noûs that Leroux wrote for the Delangles only a few months before the recording.

The works on this recording were written at various periods in Claude Debussy’s life, and reflect different aspects of him: from a young man stylistically unsure of himself to the confident maître, from a jobbing composer struggling to fulfill sometimes incongruous commissions to a man worn down by illness and outer events. The disc opens with Printemps – a work originally for choir, piano and orchestra written in 1887 during Debussy’s stay in Italy as a winner of the Prix de Rome, but only published 25 years later in an orchestration made by Henri Büsser under the composer’s supervision. Three of the works that follow were commissions – the Rapsodie from a lady saxophonist, the Marche écossaise from an American general of Scottish descent and the Deux Dances from the instrument-maker Pleyel wanting to market a new model for a chromatic harp.

Pedro Iturralde - Complete Music for Saxophone & Piano (2016) {Naxos Official Digital Download}
FLAC (tracks) - 16bit/44kHz - Official Digital Download (qobuz.com) -> 246 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 158 Mb | Artwork | 5% repair rar
© 2016 Naxos | 8.573429
Jazz / Classical / Chamber Music / Contemporary Jazz

Pedro Iturralde is one of the most admired Spanish composer-performers of the last half-century. An important innovator in the fusion of jazz and flamenco styles, he has also enriched his music with folk and classical idioms. One of his best-loved pieces is the Hungarian Dance, for two saxophones, whilst Suite Helénica blends jazz idioms with southern Greek folklore. Zorongo Gitano is a classic example of his fusion style, full of alluring harmonies and rhythms. The composer’s definitive versions of these works were made especially for this recording.