Abstract:
This project is the creation of an album featuring cello transcriptions for baritone saxophone in various chamber music settings. The four primary components of the project are the professional-quality audio recordings, the parts transcribed, the accompanying manuscript, and liner notes. Appearing on the album are Brahms’s op. 38 Cello Sonata No. 1 in E Minor, Mahler’s Piano Quartet in A Minor, a modified arrangement of Mozart’s K. 292 Sonata for Bassoon and Cello, and the final movement of Mendelssohn’s op. 66 Piano Trio in C Minor. The goal of these transcriptions and their recordings is to demonstrate my skills as a chamber musician as well as the adaptability of the baritone saxophone while learning from my own study, colleagues, and experiences how best to blend in with the other instruments in various instrumentations. Furthermore, these four convincing transcriptions can contribute to the saxophone repertoire and become useful to the overall saxophone community in both study and performance. Due to the scarcity of transcriptions from the Classic and Romantic eras, saxophonists generally have been unable to perform the repertoire of these great composers; this project allows them to do just that. The cello writing of these works employs a range playable on the baritone saxophone while avoiding a prevalence of string techniques impossible to replicate on saxophone. Brahms’s sonata is performed on saxophone and piano, Mozart’s duet on saxophone and bassoon, Mahler’s quartet on piano, violin, viola, and saxophone, while Mendelssohn’s trio includes piano, soprano saxophone, and baritone saxophone.
