Five of One, Half a Dozen of the Other…?
for saxophone
quartet: AATB (2000)
duration: 10’
GRT • 070
CD
available
Continuum
Sax
Continuum Saxophone Quartet, CSAX01
Reed Music
audio sample
1: At Sixes and Sevens
score available from
Reed Music
program note
This set of four
short pieces for saxophone quartet is dedicated to M.C.
Escher. All four miniatures explore different aspects of
rhythmic ambiguity inspired by the visual ambiguity found
in Escher's impossible pictures.
At Sixes and
Sevens, scored in
13/8 (6+7), is based around a cinematic theme which is
developed and features a written solo for the tenor
saxophone. The texture ebbs and flows and is finally
reduced back to just key and breath noise under a final
utterance of the theme.
Möbius
Strip explores
compound metre, mostly 5/8. A möbius strip is (in its most
simple form) a strip of paper looped and joined at the ends
but with one end turned around 180 degrees. This creates an
object with only one plane, since the front merges into the
back and vice versa. This miniature is entirely motivic,
based around the opening 5-note cell which loops seamlessly
around on itself, expanding and contracting, like a möbius
strip. Towards the end it modulates pivotally up a
semitone, launching upwards into infinity.
The title miniature, Five of One, Half a Dozen of the
Other…? was the
first to be written in the set and explores the rhythmic
ratio, 5:6. It is here that the influence of Escher's
ambiguous forms is most noticeable. The two rhythms, scored
in 15/16 actually fit together like a puzzle. Sometimes you
hear the 5, sometimes the 6, and the points where these two
merge can sometimes leave the listener in a state of
balance between different pulses. Set against this is a
blues melody and, later, a rising scale motive which alters
the direction of the music 'in the blink of an eye'.
Delayed
Arrival (Flight 4753) is an experiment in non-aligned barlines
with a common pulse. All four saxophones have individual
melodies in the same key, but of differing lengths in
different time signatures (4/4, 7/4, 5/4 and 3/4). These
'co-exist' but create a sense of floating pulse, until all
come together at the end, drawn into the 4/4 vortex of the
second alto, culminating in a 'shared' groove.
These pieces were written for Continuum Sax (James
Nightingale, Margery Smith, Martin Kay and Jarrod Whitburn)
who, together with Barry Cockcroft, helped to workshop and
polish the pieces.
reviews
"Greenbaum's
piece is beautifully idiomatic”
Andrew Ford, 24 Hours, October 2002
“From the opening track it is
obvious to hear the rhythmic accuracy and excellent
intonation that can only come from a dedicated ensemble.
Melbourne composer and lecturer Stuart Greenbaum's four
miniatures Five of
One, Half a dozen of the other…? (dedicated to artist and mathematician
M.C. Escher), capitalises on this accuracy with a work in
mixed metres, inspired by the visual ambiguity of the
artist's work. There is particularly beautiful p soft
staccato playing in the third movement.”
John Babbage, Australian Clarinet and Saxophone,
September 2001