Rare Pleasures of Classical Sax in Faculty Artist Series Concert at HSU

Say “saxophone” and you might think of jazz artists like John Coltrane and Branford Marsalis, or pop stars like Kenny G., or maybe the Stax sax soul sound, the Big Band sax section of Glenn Miller, or the raunchy sax of 1950s rock & roll. But these are not what Adolphe Sax had in mind when he invented the instrument in 1840.

“He meant it to be a classical instrument,” said Virginia Ryder of the HSU Department of Music. “He thought it would be integrated in orchestras.”

That didn’t happen very much, but with the finesse of woodwinds and the power of brass, the relatively new instrument called the saxophone still found favor with classical music composers.

One of the first was Russian composer Alexander Glazounov (1865-1939) whose “Concerto” will be performed by Virginia Ryder on saxophone and John Chernoff on piano, as part of their upcoming evening of classical saxophone music at HSU’s Fulkerson Recital Hall.

“John requested this one,” Ryder said, “but it’s also been one of my favorites. This is the first time I’ve had the opportunity to perform it since I was a student.”

The duo will also perform “Picnic on the Marne” by contemporary American composer Ned Rorem. “He’s known mostly for his songs, and this set of seven pieces are essentially songs without words,” Ryder said. The theme is a couple of friends on a road trip from Paris to the country and back, with interactions described by “stage directions” in the score, including “fast and blatant,” “dangerously slow, muffled in blue, followed by a tense discussion” during which the saxophone is directed to play “hot and free,” and the piano is to be “cold and strict.” “It’s a lot of fun to play,” Ryder added.

Contemporary French composer Claude Bolling is probably best known for his “Suite for Flute and Jazz Piano Trio” with Jean-Pierre Rampal. Like that work, his “Le Papillon” (The Butterfly) for saxophone and piano “goes back and forth from a classical to a jazz feel,” as Ryder describes it. “It plays around with time elements—it’s also a lot of fun.”

What Ryder describes as the “dark cloud” or serious moment in this generally “ light-hearted program” is “Elegie et Rondeau” by Czech-born, naturalized American contemporary composer Karel Husa, whose “String Quartet #3” won the Pulitzer Prize in 1969. “This is a very powerful piece, with a lot of the same emotions of his most-played work, “Music for Prague 1968.”

The program ends with “Tiamat,” composed by a former HSU student and current member of the HSU Music faculty, Dante DeSilva. “It’s a work for unaccompanied saxophone that uses ‘extended techniques’ that go beyond the usual saxophone techniques to include multiphonics, which is sounding more than one tone at a time,” Ryder said.

Virginia Ryder has performed extensively on saxophone and oboe through the U.S. in orchestras including the Boston Symphony, Denver Symphony and Pittsburgh Symphony. She is a current member of the Eureka Symphony, Symphony of the Redwoods in Mendocino County and the Mendocino Music Festival Orchestra. She’s also performed with Manhattan Transfer, George Burns and Bill Cosby. She teaches studio oboe, bassoon, saxophone, class woodwinds and chamber music at HSU.