Giacomo Meyerbeer
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Opera’s influence on early “turcophone” literature
One of the first saxophone soloists is quite a unique character. Charles-Jean-Baptiste Soualle, aka Ali Ben Sou Alle, was a clarinet student at the Paris Conservatory who graduated in 1844. He took a job playing in orchestras in Paris before going to England with his ‘corno musa,’ aka the turcophone, which was really just an…
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One of the first Operas with the saxophone, Meyerbeer’s 1849 Le Prophète
When I started this project, I was researching all Romantic operas that were orchestrated for the saxophone. 800+ works of operas and ballets later, I am still finding early Romantic operas, including Giacomo Meyerbeer’s (1791-1864) 1849 grand opera, Le Prophète, which makes it the second oldest opera in the database after George Kastner’s 1844 opera,…
the Operatic Saxophone 