Milhaud: Scaramouche, suite for saxophone & piano (or orchestra), Op. 165c

Darius Milhaud was a chameleon composer, imbibing the infectious rhythms of South America in Le Boeuf sur le toit and Scaramouche, and the sentiment of jazz in La Création du monde, together with a darker side in the Sonnets composé en secret with words written by the imprisoned French Resistance poet Jean Cassou.

Under the renowned conductor Milan Turkovic, the twelve soloists of the Selmer Saxharmonic are now for the first time presenting the symphonic dimension of the fascinating saxophone family.

The works featured on this new hybrid SACD, in which Mario Marzi is joined by the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi and conductor Hansjörg Schellenberger, represent some of the most significant pieces ever written for the saxophone.

Several of them, including the Jacques Ibert’s Concertino da Camera, and the two pieces by Milhaud, the arrangement of his work Scaramouche which was originally written for two pianos, and the ballet La Création du Monde are influenced by the music of the early jazz pioneers. Claude Debussy in the Rhapsody for Saxophone and Orchestra, and Alexander Glazunov’s in his concerto of 1934 are more interested in exploring the range of colour of the instrument within a more traditional framework.

For more than 20 years the saxophone player Mario Marzi has been working with the Teatro alla Scala and the Filarmonica della Scala under the baton of such leading conductors as Ricardo Muti, Carlo Maria Giulini, and Wolfgang Sawallisch. During this period he has won nine national and four international competitions.

'Anyone who has studied the saxophone from a classical perspective will be aware of the centrality theFrench school has played in the instrument’s development. There is an abundance of 20th century repertoire often written as test pieces for the Paris Conservatoire and inspired by the likes of Marcel Mule and Jean Marie Londeix. This repertoire was undoubtedly conceived with a specific style of playing in mind and consequently has become synonymous with traditional French concepts of sound. My own approach to the instrument is from a vocal perspective, incorporating the body’s natural resonance chambers and striving to phrase and interpret the music as a singer. When embarking upon this recording project it was my intention to keep this aesthetic at the heart of my interpretations, choosing tempi which allowed the music to sing and breathe, and using vibrato flexibly to colour the sound according to the musical context. My previous discs (Sanctuary and Renouncement) have been an exploration of an ecclesiastical sound-world incorporating voices and church organ. In this context the primary objective was to achieve a purity and ethereal nature to the sound. When it came to revisiting the repertoire on this disc I found myself exploring an alternative sound palette which also involved greater finger dexterity. Many of these were, after all, “test pieces” designed to highlight a performer’s technical prowess. The process has highlighted for me just how individual the saxophone is, and how the performer dictates the end result rather than the instrument.' Christian Forshaw, April 2008