Habanera Saxophone Quartet - Mysterious Morning (2001)

This is a very satisfying release. The foremost reason is the quality of the Habanera Quartet. The members exhibit not only facility with the most difficult technical passages and a variety of styles, but their range of dynamics and colors is broad and always under strict control. If the music ever becomes harsh (as in the Xenakis), it is for an aesthetic reason, not through the fault of the instrumentation or ensemble-playing.
The other reason is the program, which hits a series of high points in the (non-American) saxophone quartet repertoire. I feel that in the 20th century we?ve seen three new acoustic chamber ensembles emerge Read more Bagatelles for wind quintet by Guillaume Bourgogne (with the composer?s blessing), and despite the loss of one instrument, one never feels anything is lost from the original. The quartet renders Ligeti?s wit and fantasy with devastating accuracy. Rasch (1990), by Franco Donatoni (1927?2000), is a concise essay in small fragments that coalesce into larger textures: a delicate jigsaw puzzle that assembles itself in real-time. His Rasch II of 1995, for quartet, two percussion, and piano, however, is far less satisfying. At twice the length of its predecessor, it begins to sound like note-spinning that simply covers a given duration, a testimony to compositional fluency but not much more (this composer, quite renowned in his lifetime, already seems to be fading in collective memory in relation to his peers; I wouldn?t be surprised if he is one of those for whom history may have an ultimately dismissive judgement).
Iannis Xenakis?s Xas (1987) is both ?sax? in retrograde and a reduction of the composer?s name. It is genuinely abrasive, though at times?almost like a momentary calm in the middle of chaos?relatively lush harmonic moments emerge. It?s wonderful for being unlike almost anything else in the saxophone quartet repertoire. Sofia Gubaidulina?s In Erwartung (?In Anticipation?) from 1994 is scored for quartet and six percussion. Based on the ever-so-familiar motive from the Dies Irae, it is an alternation between stillness and violent gestures, full of gnomic moments, exotic sounds (slide whistles and saxophones, for example), and unsettling silences. Finally, Mysterious Morning II (1996), by Fuminori Tanada (b. 1961), is a two-movement etude based on fluttering, descending chromatic lines. It could be too reductive and schematic, except that the composer carefully controls microtonal inflections and timbral shadings, which gives the internal structure of the gestures more interest.
The Tanada and later Donatoni are recorded premieres, though I have to say that they are the least interesting works for me on the program. But the Ligeti transcription is also a premiere, which is an important event. The remaining works are all significant and enduring works within this still-young repertoire. As said before, the performances are outstanding, and the recording simply gorgeous. On this cycle, I?ve encountered a few releases on Alpha, a new?at least to me?and (apparently) French label. They seem consistently engaging in terms of repertoire, quality of performance, and production values.