Opdrachten in twintigste-eeuwse saxofoonmuziek: een contextualiserende, comparatieve en artistieke benadering.

This project studies the phenomenon of dedication in 20th-century saxophone music in general and the dedicatee’s role in the process of composition of the dedicated works in particular. I concentrate on three pioneering saxophonists to whom compositions were dedicated in the 20th century: Elise Hall, Sigurd Rascher and Marcel Mule. A sample of compositions dedicated to those musicians forms the basis of this research, which proposes a contextualizing, comparative and artistic approach to the repertoire. The contextualization consists in studying the background and genesis of the dedications. It also comprises an interpretation of the artistic choices in the scores, which I relate to the characteristic features of the case studies’ individual performance styles. I will retrieve these features by analyzing historical music periodicals, musical methods, recordings and instruments. Next, I offer a comparison between the individual performance styles of the three saxophonists and the scores that were dedicated to them. Differences and similarities between the cases will be connected with their respective personal and institutional backgrounds. My research also adopts an artistic approach to the corpus. I will perform a selection of scores in a historically informed way to do justice to the characteristics of each musical work as well as the individual performance styles of the dedicatees.

Trefwoorden:saxophone history, twentieth-century music, dedicating music, historically informed performance, artistic research

Disciplines:Muziekuitvoering