Saxophone

“ In quality of tone the saxophone possesses the characteristic reediness of the clarinet, to which, however, is added a certain brazen tinge, combined with a string quality akin to that of the cello. The volume is greater, but the flexibility inferior to that of the clarinet or the bassoon.
Saxophones are of greater utility in military bands than in the orchestra, though modern composers, particularly the French, are introducing two, three, or four of them into their scores. ”

“ When represented by a full choir it materially improves the tone quality, while its capacity for distinct rendering of very rapid passages, combined with its powerful tone, make it a valuable adjunct for obtaining a good balance of instrumentation of wind-bands.
The Saxophone is extensively employed in most military reed-bands of the south of Europe, especially those of France; but in the infantry bands of Germany and Austria it remains almost unknown. ”

“ The latest development of flute and reed pipes is to be found in the flute, oboe, clarinet, and bassoon of the modern orchestra. Plates XXXVIII. and XXXIX. represent instruments that have been the immediate precursors of or are identical with the instruments named. One, the Dolciano or Tenoroon with a clarinet reed, is of unusual importance as possibly anticipating the invention of the Saxophone. ”

“ The average strength of the various classes of instrument in the band of a British line regiment has been stated as—twenty flutes, oboes, clarinets and bassoons, four horns, eight saxhorns, six trumpets and cornets, three trombones, two drums. The buglers and drummers are in the proportion of one of each per company. The saxophone, which is the characteristic instrument of military bands in other countries, has not found favour with the British authorities. ”

“ In making plans for the organization of a group of wind instrument players into a band, it should be noted by the conductor that here the entire harmony must be supplied by the individual instruments (no piano being used) thus making it necessary to have alto, tenor, and baritone saxhorns in addition to cornets, clarinets, flutes, and trombones. The tuba is also almost indispensable, while the inclusion of two or three saxophones will greatly increase the mellowness of the effect as well as providing an additional color to make the tonal textures more interesting. ”

“ You can learn the scale in an hour, and in a few weeks be playing popular music. First 3 lessons free, with each new Saxophone. For home entertainment—church—lodge—school or for Orchestra Dance Music, the Saxophone is the ideal instrument.
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“ It sings and shouts and weeps as he wills. It is an orchestra or a flute or an Æolian harp, as the mood seizes him. The brilliancy, the incredible articulation, and the rapidity of his execution—upon one string or four strings—with all kinds of marvelous effects and whims, with the intensity and precision of his bowing, are in harmony with all the rest. They are called tricks, but they are only such tricks as the wind and clouds play; they are only such tricks as an artist of his organization, who loves the sounds and capacities of his instrument for their own sake, must necessarily display. ”

“ There were sonatas, or rather veiled symphonies; songs whose poetry might be understood without words; piano pieces both of a demoniac nature and of the most graceful form; sonatas for piano and violin; string quartettes, each so different from every other that they seemed to flow from many different springs. Whenever he bends his magic wand, there, when the powers of the orchestra and chorus lend him their aid, further glimpses of the magic world will be revealed to us. May the highest genius strengthen him! ”

“ It is an epic instrument, like horns, trumpets and trombones. The voice is like that of heroic love. This beautiful soprano instrument, so ringing, so rich in penetrating accents, when employed in masses, gains, when employed as a solo instrument, in delicacy, evanescent shadowings and mysterious tenderness what it loses in force and powerful brilliancy. Nothing so virginal, so pure as the tint imparted to certain melodies by the tone of a clarinet, played in the medium by a skilful performer. It is the one of all the wind instruments which can best breathe forth, swell, diminish and die away. ”

“ As one who loves wind-instruments, I like to think that the flutes, oboes, and clarinets are the flowers of my vernal orchestra, decorating the great mass of stringed instruments with streaks and flames of colour.
In real music, we cannot say why certain sounds make an appropriate opening for a symphony ”

“ In the midst of the second warm and sinuous melody, we hear again the masculine voice, in less conventional accents, and the soft responses of the treble, through quite a colloquy, while the accompaniment keeps ever steadily to the undulating waltz movement, till the two voices merge gradually into the general murmur and are drowned in the flourishes of the orchestra, as our couple disappears in the whirl, with which the waltz, taking up again the first sparkling melody with accelerated pace, draws with increasing confusion to its close. ”

“ Every tone which proceeds from a stringed instrument, as a violin, a harp, a piano-forte, or from a pipe, as a flute, or an organ, or from a bell, gives out at the same time other sounds which are not the same, but yet unite so as to form one whole in their effect. In a large bell this can easily be perceived when it is tolled slowly ; the note sounds, and immediately after we hear others, more particularly the twelfth, fifteenth, and seventeenth. A delicate ear will perceive the same in a piano-forte ”

“ Thus, although vocal tone originates within the larynx, it sets the resonance-cavities into sympathetic vibration, and these produce the harmonics that give the fundamental tone its timbre; the resonance-cavities being to the vocal cords or lips what the body or resonance-box of the violin and the sounding-board of the pianoforte are to their strings, the tube of a cornet or horn to the lips, the body of the clarinet to its reed—the resonating factor which determines the overtones and through these the timbre. ”

“ The execution of a rare melody demands as a prime condition an instrument of wide compass and delicate construction, and one of even more rich and varied capabilities is needed to render those grand harmonies which are woven in the modulation of sonorous chords. A skilful hand may draw a scale from wooden blocks set upon ropes of straw, but the great musician must hold the violin, or must feel the keys of the organ under his fingers and the responsive pedals at his feet, before he can expect to interpret fittingly the immortal thought of the composer. ”

“ The most memorable moments with me have been those in which pain and pleasure, yearning and satisfaction, knowledge and seeking, have been so exquisitely and so intangibly blended, in listening to some deep sonata, some stately and pathetic old ciacconna or gavotte, some concerto or symphony; the thing nearest heaven is to sit apart with closed eyes while the orchestra or the individual performer interprets for one the mystic poetry, or the dramatic fire, or the subtle cobweb refinements of some instrumental poem. ”

“ These irregular forms of rhythm are called syncopation. See also Ex. 6, second Phrase.
MELODY.—Any succession of single tones is a melody. If we strike the keys of the piano with two or more fingers of each hand simultaneously, we produce a body of tones, which—if they are so chosen that they blend harmoniously—is called a Chord; and a series of such chords is an illustration of what is known as Harmony. If, however, we play with one finger only, we produce a melody. The human voice, the flute, horn,—all instruments capable of emitting but one tone at a time,—produce melody. ”

“ Next we were favoured with a song in bass, accompanied with the piano—in which a male voice was so closely imitated as to defy the most acute ear to make it anything else; a male voice, however, highly refined—deeper, stronger, sweeter—than ever before fell upon our ear. The feelings of all present were delightfully stirred,—even the atmosphere in which we sat seemed trembling with emotion.
These were followed by other songs, enough to exhibit the vocal charms and operatic talent of this wonderful cantatrice, in all their strength and compass. ”

“ Storm and fury of orchestra. There is a wild series of ascending fifths. Tam-tam and harp knell the soul’s departure.
IV. The “Transfiguration” theme is heard from the horns; strings repeat the “Childhood” motive. A crescendo leads to the full development of the “Transfiguration” theme (moderato, C major) , “World deliverance, world transfiguration.”
The scoring is as follows: three flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, double bassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones and bass tuba, kettledrums, tam-tam, two harps, and strings. ”

“ Ah! could we but see the vibrations of the atmosphere which a single musical chord produces—the rolling bass, the gliding alto, the sweeping soprano, and the soaring tenor, rolling onward in one broad channel of harmony, with its myriad tributary streams of thirds and fifths, and its curling, twinkling, shifting, blending, soaring mists of delicate-toned harmonics, how would our enjoyment of music be enhanced! ”

“ The wood wind, for example, consists of flutes and oboes, which are purely soprano instruments, clarinets, which extended from upper bass to moderately high soprano, English horn, which has a tenor range, bass clarinet, which runs from deep bass up into treble, and bassoons, which comprise bass, baritone, and tenor registers. That organization of instruments is capable of independent performance, possessing, as it does, all the components of full and extended harmony and a wide variety of color. ”

“ Juxtaposition of strings and wood-wind which overweights legato or declamatory singing may nevertheless be employed if one of the groups forms the harmony in sustained notes and the other executes a melodic design, when, for instance the sustaining instruments are clarinet, and bassoon, or bassoon and horn, and the melodic design is entrusted to violins or violas—or in the opposite case, when the harmony is given to violas and 'cellos divisi, and the harmonic figure to the clarinets. ”

“ Their instruments are a big drum, hand tambours, huge cone-shaped basket rattles, a bent bamboo harp with a solitary string, and the indispensable güiro or nutmeg-grater. There is harmony in this outline of an orchestra, let him laugh who may. No actual tune is there, but you have all the lights and shadows—the skeleton, so to speak—of a tune, and if your imagination be musical, that will suffice to supply the melody. ”

“ Do we want breadth? There is the Sestett in B flat, the Second Symphony, the Piano Quartett in A. Do we want tenderness? There is the Minnelied, there [297] is 'Wie bist du meine Königin,' there is the first Violin Sonata. Is it simplicity? We may turn to Erinnerung, to Sonntag, to the later pianoforte pieces. Is it complexity? We have the Symphony in E minor, the four Concertos, the great masterpieces of vocal counterpoint. For pure, sensuous beauty, apart from all other attributes, it is impossible to surpass the Schicksalslied, or the F major Symphony, or the Clarinet Quintett. ”

“ In the long evolution from the simple to the complex which music shares with everything else we know we may observe two different methods of tone-combination which, working together, have given us the elaborate texture of the modern art. That especially suited to melodic instruments, like those used in the orchestra or the chorus, puts melodies together as an engraver puts together lines, each remaining distinct, standing off clearly from the others, representing a different musical thought, and yet all agreeing, or, as we say, harmonizing. ”

“ We should have to take account, too, of the reflection, especially in later works like the piano sonata, the violin [173] sonata, and the second symphony, of the harmonic idiom of Debussy and other contemporaries, the whole-tone scale, and the like. And under these individual influences we should find more general, subtle, and pervasive ones, we should find the great communal streams of the French folk-song and the Gregorian plain chant. Yet all these streams, and others too many to mention, have been gathered up into one clear personality. What has been the transmuting magic? ”

“ The ear hesitates—but will this mystery of harmony end?—and the dull pulsations of the drums, growing louder and louder, reach the violins, which now take part in the movement and with a change of harmony, to the chord of the dominant seventh, G, B, D, F, while the drums roll obstinately their tonic C; the whole orchestra, assisted by the trombones, which have not yet been heard, bursts in the major into the theme of a triumphal march, and the finale begins.... ”

“ The violin gave out a beautiful melody that soared passionately, yet gracefully, above an accompaniment, simple at first, but growing gradually more intense and insistent till a great climax was reached, after which the solo voice sank slowly to a low, whispering murmur, while the piano played above it a succession of sweetly delicate and graceful phrases. ”