Voyage

Voyage for Saxophone Quartet by Charlotte Bray.

This work was composed in 2017 and first performed on 29 July 2017 at the Nova Music and Architecture Festival in Torun, Poland by The Nordic Saxophone Quartet.

Commissioned by Johannes Thorell and the Nordic Saxophone Quartet with generous support from Swedish Arts Council and Längmanska Kulturfonden.

Programme Notes

Departing by train from any station in Berlin can lead one to think on the many historic journeys that began there. In the current geopolitical climate, with migration at its highest level since the Second World War, this musing is all the more poignant. Watching and listening to the trains depart from Ostbanhof station in the former East Germany, became, in a strange and unexpected way, the starting point for the piece.

On these occasions I heard a series of sounds unexpectedly reminiscent of an ascending scale on the saxophone- a distinct, varying collection of ascending ‘notes’, altering at each occurrence in rhythm, tempo, interval, pitch, and number of pitches present. The different musical journeys that evolved from this unique experience, explore a range of accompanying emotions- excitement, fear, anxiety, sorrow and, paradoxically, stillness and calm.

Clearly singing through in this quartet is a personal affection for the pure tone of the saxophone. The work consists of multiple, contrasting, mainly short movements culminating in a more substantial and expressive finale. The opening, serene in character, begins by ‘quoting’ a train departure, and builds gently into the second movement. Lively and playful, the baritone takes the lead on a riff-like honking melody, in sections interspersed with softer interludes. In the third movement, sorrowful, sweetly singing long lines float between the three instruments (the baritone is tacet) forming an enduring, slow melody.

The agile fourth movement also shares melodic material between the parts but this time in a minute way — the lines are short and often staccato, passing fine strands of melody around, at times going off on a tangent, superimposed against the melodic thread. A mischievous, biting fifth movement gives way rapidly to the impending angst-filled finale. Here, as in the opening, a departing train is quoted as an ascending scale, from which the entire movement gradually unfolds.

• Charlotte Bray

Performance Notes

The score is transposing. Breath marks are a suggestion only.

Duration: 16 minutes