John Harle, Academy of St.Martin-in-the-Fields, Sir Neville Marriner - Saxophone Concertos (2007)

Things that don't fit neatly into pigeonholes have always had a hard time, and so it has been with the saxophone; Hoffnung's string-tuba would have had very big problems. Sax was a tireless inventor: his plans for a monster canon, and a device for playing loud music from Parisian high ground never bore fruit, but the former anticipated Saddam Hussein and the latter, scaled down, is with us as Muzak. Though the saxophone has never found a regular place in the orchestra it has nevertheless captured the interest of a long line of composers; a square peg doesn't need to fit into any orchestral round hole when it is centre-stage. It is, too, one of the instruments whose technique has been advanced by players of jazz—a field in which John Harle remains active. There are now exponents of awesome ability, worthy of the attention of serious composers such as, in this recording, Bennett—who is also given to crossing the musical tracks.

Debussy's was the first of these six works (1911). I first heard it played in the late 1930s by Sigurd Rascher—for whom the Glazunov (1934) and Ibert (1935) concertos were written—a piece with a chequered history, first orchestrated by Roger Ducasse and here updated by Harle himself. Villa-Lobos, whose concerto was assigned to soprano or tenor saxophone (Harle chooses the former), was an enthusiastic user of the instrument—though his concerto (1948) is uncharacteristically restrained. There is little in Bennett's very accessible concerto to suggest a jazz connection, but Heath formalizes one in an easily recognizable post-Miles vein. Harle is the Compleat Virtuoso in every department (he surmounts the high harmonics in the cadenza of the last movement of the Glazunov with the surefootedness of a mountain goat) and as eloquent an advocate for the 'serious saxophone' as could be imagined; the ever-reliable ASMF give him all the support he (and we) might wish. Berlioz would have been amazed by this splendid recording, as you may too. -- John Duarte