Saxophone and classical guitar combination command attention

Saxophone and classical guitar is not a usual concert combination, and the repertory for such a duo, whilst growing with new works being commissioned or offered by contemporary composers, is hardly extensive. Even allowing for adaptations of music originally conceived for other, more common partnerships – flute or clarinet with keyboard of some kind, for instance – there is a long way to go before such contrasting instrumental personalities are likely be regarded as natural partners for a full concert programme of music-making. Added to which the power to engage and retain the willing attention of an audience secure in knowledge of what it likes but uncertain of whether it will like what it is about to hear next, is something of a mystery.

It was a tribute to the artistic accomplishment of the enterprising Irishman, Gerard McChrystal (saxophone), and the Australian, Craig Ogden (Guitar), that they commanded the attention of the Rochdale Music Society concert’s audience in the Heywood Civic Centre on Saturday 8 May for nearly two hours. Time seemed to pass very quickly when filled with the delightful sonorities revealed in the course of the close encounter of their potentially rival instruments.

An increasing number of composers today are finding the challenge presented by such a dynamically contrasting partnership one which excites their imagination. Among them is Andy Scott – himself a renowned guitarist and educator based here in the North-west – with whose Nemesis the concert began. This understated end-time music whetted the appetite for more of the same kind of melodically suggestive, rhythmically challenging and in the end decidedly relaxing musical magic. Such Baroque-like sophistication would seem to be the order of the day, as was shown by the introspective Cloud Eight by the Australian Stuart Greenbaum, Ian Ballamy’s Figment and Mark Pasieczny’s Winter’s Tale.

The concert was not without its more easily recognisable musical features. Three movements from the suite ‘Histoire du Tango’ by the Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla, provided an interesting look back over some sixty years of development in the tango genre from 1900 to 1960, and a deliciously sweet work entitled Pé De Moleque (‘Peanut brittle’) by the Brazilian Celso Machado proved a very popular item in the second half. Equally well received was the tightly controlled impudence of the German Ulrich Schultheiss’s No Rest.

The concert ended - to much applause from an appreciative audience - with the three-movement Shannon Suite by the Irishman Ciarán Farrell. Loughs Allen, Ree and Derg, to be encountered along the course of Ireland’s longest river, are the inspiration for this readily accessible descriptive music with its Celtic aura and accent.

The next RMS concert will be held in Rochdale Parish Church (St. Chad’s) on Thursday 7 October at 7.30pm. It is being jointly promoted with the North West Composers’ Association and will feature music in various styles by member of that group. Details of the programme will be announced early in Serptember.