Boosey and Hawkes, the publisher for some of best known stage works from the 20th century is now listed in the database. Works by American composers like Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, Marc Blitzstein, Ned Rorem, and John Adams can be found in the saxophone database. Other notable composers in the Boosey and Hawkes catalog are Louis Andriessen, Mark-Anthony Turnage, HK Gruber, Sir Harrison Birtwistle, and Elena Kats-Chernin. Here are a few ballet highlights.
Date: 1926
Ballet: Suite de Caballos de Vapor (Horsepower Suite) by Carlos Chávez
Saxophone: Soprano, Tenor
Chávez worked with the artist Diego Rivera to conceive this ballet. This is the earliest work from a Mexican composer in the database. Chávez was also friend with Aaron Copland, and you can hear Chávez’s influence in Copland’s 1936 symphonic work, El Salón México.
Date: 2015
Ballet: The Three Dancers by Elena Kats-Chernin
Saxophone: Soprano
Elena Kats-Chernin is one of Australia’s most prolific composers. Another entry in the database worthy of your time is her ballet Wild Swans.
Date: 1940
Ballet: Symphonic Dances op. 45 by Serge Rachmaninoff
Saxophone: Alto
You might be thinking, that’s an orchestral piece, why is it in the database? Rachmaninoff intention was for this to be staged as a ballet. Which is why there is a saxophone in this work, but not any other of his symphonies. By 1940, Prokofiev and Shostakovitch have already used the saxophone in their ballets, to great success. Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances op. 45 is a continuation of that trend of using saxophone in ballet.
Those are just a few of the highlights from Boosey and Hawkes. Explore the database to find new works.
the Operatic Saxophone 