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Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School
2017 The Saxophone Music of Tristan Keuris and an Analysis of Music for Saxophones Cole Devan Belt
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COLLEGE OF MUSIC
THE SAXOPHONE MUSIC OF TRISTAN KEURIS
AND AN ANALYSIS OF MUSIC FOR SAXOPHONES
By
COLE DEVAN BELT
A Treatise submitted to the College of Music in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Music
2017
Cole D. Belt defended this treatise on April 14, 2017. The members of the supervisory committee were:
Deborah Bish Professor Directing Treatise
Richard Clary University Representative
Alexander Jiménez Committee Member
Anne Hodges Committee Member
The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members, and certifies that the treatise has been approved in accordance with university requirements.
ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This document could not have been written without these scholars and primary sources:
Marion Keuris, Carina Raschèr, Leo Samama, and the writing of Dr. Emile Wennekes. Thank you for lending your resources, time, and expertise throughout my research and writing process.
I also would like to extend my gratitude to Deborah Bish for agreeing to stand in as my major professor/committee head, as well as my other committee members: Alex Jimenez, Anne
Hodges, and Richard Clary.
iii TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Musical Examples ...... v Abstract ...... vii
1. BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION ...... 1
Tristan Keuris ...... 1 John-Edward Kelly ...... 4
2. THE COMPOSITONAL LANGUAGE OF TRISTAN KEURIS ...... 6
Compositional Language and Influence ...... 6 Process – An Interview with Roland de Beer and Tristan Keuris ...... 10
3. THE SAXOPHONE MUSIC ...... 14
The 1970’s Saxophone Music ...... 14 John & Tristan ...... 17 The Raschèr Saxophone Quartet & Concerto for Quartet and Orchestra 19 The Inadvertent Creation of a Genre ...... 21 The Three Sonnets and The Canzone ...... 22 List of Known Errata – 1980s Saxophone Works ...... 26
4. ANALYSIS OF MUSIC FOR SAXOPHONES ...... 28
Introduction (Rehearsal 0 – 10) ...... 29 Region One (Subsections A – C / Rehearsal 10 – 26) ...... 33 Region Two (Subsections D – F / Rehearsal 26 – 46) ...... 38 Cadenza (Rehearsal 46 – 51) ...... 42 Region Three (Subsection G / Rehearsal 51 – 59) ...... 44 Region Four (Subsections H – J / Rehearsal 59 – 70) ...... 47 Coda (Rehearsal 70 – Double Bar) ...... 50
5. CONCLUSION ...... 53
BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 55
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ...... 57
iv LIST OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES
Example 1 – Music for Saxophones: measure 1 – 3 ...... 30
Example 2 – Music for Saxophones: measure 5 ...... 30
Example 3 – Music for Saxophones: measure 11 ...... 31
Example 4 – Music for Saxophones: measure 24 – 25 ...... 31
Example 5 – Music for Saxophones: measure 28-29 ...... 32
Example 6 – Music for Saxophones: measure 34 – 35 ...... 32
Example 7 – Music for Saxophones: measure 40 – 41 ...... 33
Example 8 – Music for Saxophones: measure 57 – 60 ...... 34
Example 9 – Music for Saxophones: measure 66 – 69 ...... 34
Example 10 – Music for Saxophones: measure 85 – 87 ...... 35
Example 11 – Music for Saxophones: measure 108 – 111 ...... 36
Example 12 – Music for Saxophones: measure 114 – 117 ...... 36
Example 13 – Music for Saxophones: measure 139 – 140 ...... 37
Example 14 – Music for Saxophones: measure 147 – 150 ...... 37
Example 15 – Music for Saxophones: measure 160 – 162 ...... 38
Example 16 – Music for Saxophones: measure 163 – 164 ...... 38
Example 17 – Music for Saxophones: measure 188 – 191 ...... 39
Example 18 – Music for Saxophones: measure 228 – 230 ...... 40
Example 19 – Music for Saxophones: measure 284 – 293 ...... 41
Example 20 – Music for Saxophones: measure 302 – 303 (Alto to Soprano) ...... 42
Example 21 – Music for Saxophones: measure 306 – 307 (Soprano to Alto) ...... 42
Example 22 – Music for Saxophones: measure 310 – 311 (Alto to Baritone to Tenor) ....43
v
Example 23 – Music for Saxophones: measure 320 – 323 ...... 43
Example 24 – Music for Saxophones: measure 366 – 368 ...... 44
Example 25 – Music for Saxophones: measure 374 – 375 ...... 44
Example 26 – Music for Saxophones: measure 382 – 385 ...... 45
Example 27 – Music for Saxophones: measure 382 – 384 ...... 46
Example 28 – Music for Saxophones: measure 419 – 421 ...... 47
Example 29 – Music for Saxophones: measure 444 – 447 ...... 48
Example 30 – Music for Saxophones: measure 468 – 470 ...... 49
Example 31 – Music for Saxophones: measure 485 – 488 ...... 49
Example 32 – Music for Saxophones: measure 505 – 508 ...... 50
Example 33 – Music for Saxophones: measure 520 – 526 ...... 51
Example 34 – Music for Saxophones: measure 552 – 553 ...... 51
Example 35 – Music for Saxophones: measure 554 – 557 ...... 52
vi ABSTRACT
The role of the saxophone has been in a profoundly confusing state of limbo regarding identity, sound, and repertoire since its patent in 1846. Originally intended for the orchestra, it has struggled to see that intent realized and instead, in its tenacious struggle for survival, it has found a way into other legitimate yet misaligned mediums. Throughout history, collaborations between great composers and performers have helped to establish the identity and sound of deserving instruments through compositions that showcase the most musically compelling aspects of the instrument. Saxophone virtuoso John-Edward Kelly spent his 35-year career convincing dozens of exceptional composers to commit their masterworks to an instrument sorely in need of them. Tristan Keuris stands out among them.
This treatise serves to introduce, analyze, and substantiate the saxophone works of
Tristan Keuris, whom I believe to be a composer worthy of the highest praise and international attention. It will discuss the progression of the composer’s relationship with the saxophone in coordination with his exposure to John-Edward Kelly and the Raschèr Saxophone Quartet and their influence on the repertoire overall. Combining primary sources, historical research, and analysis it is my hope that this document will become a reliable resource for future saxophonists and researchers.
vii CHAPTER 1
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
Tristan Keuris
Tristan Keuris (October 3, 1946 – December 15, 1996) was born in Amersfoort, the second largest city of the province of Utrecht in central Netherlands. His father was a cartoonist and painter, his mother a housewife. Keuris was the oldest of three, having two younger sisters.
He was brought up primarily by his grandmother on his father’s side. He lived with his parents between the ages of five and 10 and moved with his father to live with his grandmother again after his parents divorced.
As a child, he had a desire to imitate whatever he thought of as beautiful. He enjoyed sketching and writing corresponding stories.1 He received his first music lessons when he was six years old from his father who played the flute. When he was 11 or 12 years of age, he received his first piano lesson and began composing immediately after the lesson concluded.
Between the ages of 12 and 15, he wrote approximately 70 works for various ensembles, including orchestra. These works are currently archived in the Netherlands Music Institute
(NMI) in The Hague. During these years, his grandmother allowed him to stay up later than normal each evening to listen to classical music. Marion Keuris, his widow said, “Tristan’s extreme knowledge of the classical repertoire began in those times.”2 During the summer holidays, Tristan spent each morning at the local outdoor swimming pool and came back to his grandmother’s home to compose for the rest of the afternoon and evening. Throughout these years, he also took intermittent composition lessons with Jan van Vlijmen. At the age of 15, he
1 Marion Keuris, personal communication, February 22, 2017. 2 M. Keuris, personal communication, February 22, 2017.
1 left to study composition and piano as the youngest student at the Utrecht Conservatory with Ton de Leeuw. Friend and colleague of Keuris’s, Leo Samama, said:
At the conservatory, De Leeuw reset Keuris’ musical clock back to zero, making him learn the craft of composition almost from square one, purge himself of old habits and open his ears to the new music, which was then – the 1960s – rapidly gaining ground in the Netherlands. The transformation took only a few years, but at the cost of blood, sweat and tears. For long periods in those years, the young composer could sometimes produce next to nothing, and as time passed he was tormented by doubts about his choice of career. He padded his income, from an educational grant, by writing and playing music for commercials. Keuris seemed to regain his footing in 1966. His craftsmanship grew with each new piece. 3
Keuris also received private music theory instruction for a short time at Utrecht with Joep
Straesser. In 1969, he concluded his studies and was awarded the Prize for Composition. 4
Ton de Leeuw, also known as Antonius Wilhelmus Adrianus de Leeuw, was considered a highly-refined composer. He studied with Henk Badings, Olivier Messiaen, and the ethnomusicologist Jaap Kunst. His primary compositional influences were most notably Claude
Debussy, Igor Stavinsky, Sergei Prokofiev and Willem Pijper. He worked at the Netherlands
Radio Union for several years as a music producer. His book Music of the Twentieth Century is still praised as a commanding piece of literature. His compositional language is described by
Messiaen in a letter he wrote about de Leeuw’s work, “[His] music is essentially diatonic. He uses modes, melodic lines, counterpoints, chords, but it all remains diatonic. Hardly any discords. There are even bunches of chords with the use of modes. But the spirit always remains diatonic in a static way that is very close to the type of oriental music which penetrates the listener and gets him into a semi-oneiric state, the state of a waking dream.”5 Ton de Leeuw
3 Leo Samama, Tristan Keuris 1946 – 1996. The Complete Works of Tristan Keuris (Radio Netherlands Worldwide, 2010), 43. 4Emile Wennekes, (1997). Tristan Keuris: Artist and Craftsman Rolled into One. Translated by John Lydon, Muse Translations, 1997. 7. 5 Rokus de Groot & Leo Samama, (1996). Ton de Leeuw – Memorial Website. Retrieved February 22, 2017, from http://tondeleeuw.com/
2 wrote approximately 160 compositions, spanning the full spectrum from Opera to solo- unaccompanied, but according to Rokus de Groot, who works as a professor of musicology at the
University of Amsterdam and was a colleague of De Leeuw’s, “it is the vocal and, more specifically, the choral works which reveal most clearly what he was striving to obtain: a conjunction of the essence of past and present, a link between Eastern and Western thought, and the result was a unique purity of expression.”6 De Leeuw was very interested in connecting
Eastern thought with Western art after his first visit to India. His focus on vocal music may have played a role in Keuris’s compositional shift to vocal music late in his career. It is also possible that De Leeuw’s constant search for balance between Eastern thought and Western art played a role in the juxtaposition of mood in Keuris’ compositional language, but this remains only speculative.
Keuris taught music theory and composition at the conservatories in Groningen (1974-
1977), Hilversum (1977-1984), Utrecht (1984-1996) and Amsterdam (1989-1996). He also gave masterclasses at the Conservatorium of Khristiansand in 1984, Rice University in Houston in
1987, and the RNCM in Manchester in 1988.7 His music has been performed by, among others, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, the leading Dutch symphony orchestras (including the Royal
Concertgebouw Orchestra), the Raschèr Saxophone Quartet, the Arcos Orchestra, and the
Houston Symphony Orchestra. In 1982, he also won the Culture Award of Hilversum, the city where he lived from 1976 until his death. Keuris’ compositions were published by Donemus until 1987; later works were published by Novello in London. The majority of his work has been written on commission.
6 De Groot, Ton de Leeuw – Memorial Website. from http://tondeleeuw.com/ 7Tristan Keuris, (1986) “Tristan Keuris - Music for Saxophones.” YouTube. 2013. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ed5ySHkr024
3 Despite the brevity of his less than 30-year career, Tristan Keuris advanced into one of the most essential and multitalented composers in the Netherlands. An untimely death at the age of 50 ended the continued development of a brilliant mind.
John-Edward Kelly
John Edward Kelly (October 7, 1958 – February 12, 2015) was born in Fairfield,
California. He remains one of the most important figures to the classical saxophone community today, although his contributions have often been overlooked. He spent much of his life and career in Europe championing the works of lesser-known composers that were equally deserving of the same name-recognition as many of the Austro-Germanic ‘warhorses.’ His wife, Kristin
Kelly, wrote in his obituary, “He gave world-premieres of over 200 new works written for him by leading composers around the world; performed for kings and queens; and was praised in the international press as ‘the uncrowned king of his instrument.’8 His work is documented in 36 commercial recordings.”9 He is one of two saxophonists in the world to maintain a sustainable career on concertizing alone; the other is his primary mentor, Sigurd Raschèr. Regarding his artistry, The Times, London wrote, “John-Edward is a commanding virtuoso, capable of great intensity and tonal resource. He played beautifully, with fine feeling for the long phrase, and in the 20th century pieces rose to really impressive heights, bringing refinement conviction and concentrated energy to the music.” 10
8 This quote was given to the Raschèr Saxophone Quartet while he was an active member of the group, but it was also in regard to a separate solo performance by the Hufvudstadsbladet in Helsinki, Finland. 9 Kelly, “John-Edward Kelly.” TCPalm. http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/tcpalm/obituary.aspx?pid=174176810 10 John-Edward Kelly, (2003). John-Edward Kelly. From The Press…, 6.
4 Kelly taught at the Robert Schumann Academy of Music in Dusseldorf and the
Norwegian State academy of Music in Oslo. He guest-lectured at some of the world’s leading music academies, including Vienna’s University of Music, the Juilliard School, the Eastman
School of Music, King’s College in London, the Musikhochschulen of Berlin, Hamburg and
Stuttgart and the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm. He was elected as a member of the prestigious Royal Swedish Academy in 1999. In 2005, he founded the Arcos Orchestra of New
York of which he was the artistic director and principal conductor. The orchestra was heralded by leading press for its high-level artistry within three years of its founding.
John-Edward Kelly began his collegiate studies at Florida State University (FSU) in 1976 under the instruction of Patrick Meighan. In 1978, after he completed his “Music Requirements for Graduation”11 he left FSU leave to begin intensive studies with the pioneer of classical saxophone, Sigurd Raschèr, in Shushan, New York. It was here that John-Edward described taking daily three-six hour lessons in performance, music history, music theory, and analysis. In
1980, he gained Special Enrollment with scholarship at the Cincinnati Conservatory where he studied clarinet and held courses and lectures in Classical Saxophone Repertoire and History as part of his enrollment. In 1981, he retracted his enrollment the conservatory to fill Sigurd
Raschèr’s chair as the alto saxophonist in the renowned Raschèr Saxophone Quartet. After John-
Edward joined the quartet, their performance schedule increased from approximately ten concerts in 1981 to one-hundred concerts in 1984. This is the year that John-Edward Kelly and
Tristan Keuris met.
11 John-Edward Kelly, (2004). Curriculum Vitae & Professional Record, 3.
5 CHAPTER 2
THE COMPOSITIONAL LANGUAGE OF TRISTAN KEURIS
Compositional Language and Influence
Tristan Keuris’ compositional language is one of innovative textures built into strict structures. It is motivic, lyrically expressive and unafraid of looking backward for influences of form and forward for the language contained in the form. He is considered by several of his colleagues to be one of the only composers in the Netherlands to successfully fuse technical structure and artistic substance into one.12 His idiom is organic and genuine, showing obvious influence but bearing nothing that can be classified as derivative.
Dr. Emile Wennekes, colleague and musicologist, divides Keuris’s oeuvre into three relatively distinct periods.13 From 1967 – 1977 he composed mostly chamber music leaning toward the wind instrument medium. However, in the second period from 1977 – 1988, he gravitated toward something more tonal, his use of rhythm became more economical, and his works grew more expansive with Movements for orchestra standing as the longest at 25 minutes.
His number of orchestral works also grew steadily in this period. In the third period, 1988 –
1996, his use of formal titles – Quartet, Concerto, Sonata, Serenade, Trio etc. – decreased significantly, and he took a special interest in the human voice. His composition shifted to four and six-part choral writing and a concentrated use of vocal soloists.
12 Wennekes, Tristan Keuris: Artist and Craftsman Rolled Into One, 1. 13 Wennekes, Tristan Keuris: Artist and Craftsman Rolled Into One, 9.
6 Three historical sources fed Keuris’s inspiration throughout his compositional career and, though the weight of their influence became gradually less evident in his music, they were subconsciously absorbed into his vernacular. Wennekes wrote:
The first to be mentioned here is Anton Webern. Keuris’s feeling for intervallic structures lay in the continuation of this, the most consistent composer of the Second Viennese School. Regarding orchestral sound, Gustav Mahler has been a second point of orientation. Keuris shared Mahler’s predilection for large-scale, later romantic settings and his work also reflected this predecessor’s handling of the orchestra. A third beacon has been the music of Igor Stravinsky. Echoes of early Stravinsky are found in the syncopated rhythms of the Sinfonia and Movements, for example. 14
As mentioned previously his language is uniquely his own, as evident as his influences may be.
Other than the Saxophone Quartet (1970) and Concerto for Alto Saxophone and
Orchestra (1971), which will be discussed in a later chapter, Tristan Keuris gained much of his compositional notoriety with the Sinfonia for orchestra written in 1974, when the piece won the
Matthijs Vermulen Prize in 1975. The unexpectedly tonal palette came as no surprise according to the author of Keuris’ obituary, Martin Cotton:
He stayed as a teacher after graduation, refining a musical language where tonality was important, although his training from both van Vlijmen and de Leeuw had been in the then prevalent serial tradition. Keuris always had his doubts about this: “It’s not that I’m against atonality,” he said once, “but I don’t know how to build large-scale pieces with it.” So, it is not surprising that his first important piece, the Sinfonia of 1972-74, was a profoundly tonal work. 15
The piece is said to be Keuris’s breakthrough as a composer and one of the most ambitious pieces he wrote in this first period. According to the Matthijs Vermulen Prize jury report, Keuris showed “…that in this time, too, a music is conceivable which, artistically speaking, was created in the spirit of absolute compositional integrity and meets the highest demands, and yet at the
14 Wennekes, Tristan Keuris: Artist and Craftsman Rolled Into One, 8. 15 Kristin Kelly, “John-Edward Kelly.” TCPalm. (February 18, 2015). Retrieved February 12, 2017, from http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/tcpalm/obituary.aspx?pid=174176810
7 same time remains accessible and potentially valuable…”16 Other works in this period bear traces of this tonal affinity, like the Choral Music I (1969), and the Muziek for violin, clarinet, and piano (1973).
A new stylistic period began with the Cappricio written for the Netherlands Wind
Ensemble in 1978. This is the period that I am most familiar with, as the Music for Saxophones, a work that will be the subject of my analysis later in this document, and the Concerto for
Saxophone Quartet and Orchestra, which is essentially an expansion of the former, were both composed in 1986. The following quote provides additional description of his overall language in this period through a discussion of his work Cappriccio. It is extracted out of one of the very few reliable pieces of writing about Keuris’ music17:
The Cappriccio, written for the Netherlands Wind Ensemble, marked Keuris’s arrival at a mature fusion of the complex elements that typically form his music: an alternation of dramatic activity and moments of stillness or harmonic inertia; polychrome instrumentation; straightforward, though never overly transparent, lyricism; tightly knit chordal voicings; and an overriding sense of organic narrative rooted in a constant development of motifs. Harmonically speaking the piece is perceptibly shaped by fluid, cadentially orientated points of tension and relaxation, such thinking about consonance and dissonance best considered in conjunction with Keuris’s notions of static and active rather than with tonality or atonality.18
Among the most salient compositions of this period are the Movements for orchestra, the Violin
Concerto No. 1, the Piano Concerto, the Catena, and the saxophone works previously mentioned.
Keuris turned his attention to writing vocal music toward the end of the 1980s and into the early 1990s. These works included: To Brooklyn Bridge (1988), Three Michelangelo Songs
(1990), L’infinito (1990), and Laudi (1993). This vocal focus almost certainly gave way for the
16 Wennekes, Tristan Keuris: Artist and Craftsman Rolled Into One, 7. 17 This is contained in the description section of the dedicated Tristan Keuris YouTube Channel and the author is currently unknown. 18 Keuris, “Tristan Keuris - Music for Saxophones.” YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ed5ySHkr024
8 titles of the saxophone works Three Sonnets (1989) and Canzone (1990). This definitive shift in writing facilitated the development of a broader harmonic language with longer melodic lines.
His style within the ‘regions’ or sections of his work thus became more overtly Romantic and this expressivity continued into his final orchestral works: Three Preludes (1993-1994),
Symphony in D (1994-1995), Violin Concerto No. 2 (1995), and Arcade (1995). Additionally,
Keuris composed several other works during the time periods previously discussed. I did not, however, mention them either because they will be discussed in later sections or because they are not as significant in scope and prominence as the works already mentioned.
For Keuris, form was one of the most important elements, if not the most important. It is evident through a collection of comments about his works, many of which have already been provided, analysis of his compositions, and his own discourse that form was of utmost importance to him. According to saxophone virtuoso and long-term friend, John-Edward Kelly,
“When speaking of the art and craft of composition, there was little which engaged Tristan
Keuris’ interest as much as the subject of musical form. He was utterly devoted to the idea of compositional form as a musical element, not a mere organizational tool, and he was a devoted student of the scores of composers such as Mahler, for whom form meant so very much more than in the classical sense.”19 For Keuris, form was the foundation on which musical architecture should be built. Kelly added that, “…he took great pride in his own management of the formal problems of composition. I remember very well how pleased he was when an interesting aspect of form in his music could be recognized at first hearing, and I also remember how unhappy he was upon thinking that – perhaps – the form wasn’t just right.”20
19 John-Edward Kelly, (1999). Improvisation upon Themes by Tristan Keuris? Never! A Few Thoughts about Why, 1. 20 Kelly, Improvisation upon Themes by Tristan Keuris? Never! A Few Thoughts about Why, 2.
9 This quote found in the ‘Treasured Composers’ section of Donemus’s website, a company that published much of Keuris’ music beginning after 1984, lays the groundwork of my observation and description of his music. “Keuris once said that he worked ‘in complexes of atmospheres and colours’. He called the form of his works athematic: ‘The form is indeed traditional, but regarding their content, my works deviate from that. I know immediately when
I’ve come across a fragment with life in it.”21
I find his harmonic language to be regional in that it is at once, complex, serial in rhythm and pitch-class only to be juxtaposed by something ethereal, atmospheric, and wholly transparent. He writes within a certain harmonic area, be it serial, modal, or otherwise, and then changes based in the form of the piece. It is the clear establishment and consequent shifts of color and mood that present themselves as definitively post-impressionist. The modes themselves and the emotions they evoke are of equal importance to this observation in that they, at times, appeal to our baser more cathartic instincts and, at other times, carry a more hedonistic quality.
No matter what the mood is, it is usually obvious in its intent and color. The harmonic language of each section is usually established very early while complex rhythmic sensibilities give the listener the impression that the section is in a state of constant evolution that facilitates longer organic life. Though the moods shift suddenly, the transitions do not present themselves as abrupt to the listener, which is a demonstration of Keuris’ brilliant mind for orchestration.
21 Donemus publishing house of contemporary classical music. (2012). Retrieved February 11, 2017, from http://donemus.nl/tristan-keuris/
10 Process – An Interview with Roland de Beer and Tristan Keuris
The excerpts in this section are extracted from an interview conducted by a Netherlands music critic, Roland de Beer.22 The interview was, thankfully, transcribed and translated and is an extensive dialogue between De Beer and Keuris about the process of writing Movements for orchestra. I have chosen to cite some of the more relevant points pertaining to this document.
Roland de Beer: Do you compose at the piano or at a desk? Tristan Keuris: Always at the desk. The piano is in the living room. Upstairs in my workroom, with an old upright, pretty shaky. I use it from time to time, when I want to check the sound of a chord, but otherwise I don’t use it much. The manuscript paper is more important than the keyboard.
RdB: What I notice in your music is the great breadth of the instrumental spectrum. For example, even before you’ve begun to write, don’t those 32 staves already represent definite instrumental colours? TK: That’s right. There are moments when I begin with a particular colour without knowing exactly what the notes are going to be. Then I begin in a particular place on the page. For example a passage for brass alone. I would never write that at the very bottom of the page. That would really bother me, even if the page were filled with measures preceding the passage. I would rather take a new page, fill in a few other instruments with meaningless rests, to make the sound picture clear. And I don’t like notating woodwinds and strings alone, either. I’d rather put in four horns in between, four horns which remain silent.
RdB: And do you, perhaps, always want to be surprised by what you have written? TK: When I read through my music, I must always feel: how the hell did you do that? Either I have that feeling right away or not at all. It doesn’t mean that I’m not sure of myself, but I have to have that feeling while I’m composing. Otherwise, I don’t compose, it just doesn’t come.
RdB: Does your first picture consist of tone colour? TK: I think about things like that in fairly subjective terms. I think of a light or dark sonority, not that I mean a gloomy one; felty or enameled sound. Filthy, or ‘beautiful’ in the traditional sense, or things like ‘clear and frosty’.
RdB: Enameled sound? TK: I mean that colours can have a crackled finish; you can see through them, without their being transparent: through a beautiful, but actually very stiff and ugly voice-leading.
RdB: Do you sometimes jot down a musical idea without having a definite colour in mind?
22 Roland de Beer & Tristan Keuris (1982). Movements by Tristan Keuris. ‘I must always feel: How the hell did you do that?’, 1-12.
11 TK: An idea without colour does not exist for me. I can still remember how topped up I got during a theory class in school, because someone taking dictation in 3/8 time didn’t run all the crotchets together under one beam, but left them all detached, and the semiquavers all neatly joined in twos. An image like that appeals so powerfully to me that I immediately imagine a very expressive piece for 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, harp, celesta and harmonium. Things like that get you started – by the way, I never wrote that piece. I used to begin right away in full score, the whole lot. But then I would often run into difficulties with the large-scale aspects of the work; you begin to work so inch-by-inch that you no longer feel the music breathing. That’s why I make a rough sketch now. Not a short score, but a profile. Motives, chords, a few lines, and colours. Then I go on as soon as possible to a score, because that’s where composing really begins, I can’t just say ‘orchestra here’ and not know why until a later stage.
RdB: Do you sometimes overreach yourself? TK: That’s what you’re afraid of – you’ve got something, but is it really something? It’s just as likely that a fragment is completely ridiculous, bubbling nonsense, what does the man think, that’s composition? I think that’s the reason that so many ideas remain just that and are never taken further.
RdB: Do you ever write down an idea too quickly? TK: I have learned to control myself and not write down everything immediately. Even an interesting notion can be too general; then I write down something entirely different than what I really meant and the original idea has disappeared. Gone. I’ve already ruined quite a few ideas by being impatient and running too soon to the desk. Just the way I used to go to the piano and start playing too soon. Even with a simple piece in g minor my ears were so stopped up that a single wrong note or chord chased all the rest out of my head. I write things down in much more general terms. Sometimes just a kind of graphic notation, with a top note and a bottom note and an indication of colour.
RdB: You didn’t consider any subjects for your piece? TK: No.
RdB: No basic musical theme? TK: A theme, an idea that you set out in an exposition and break up into motives – that kind of work is completely alien to me. I prefer to work in a more Stravinskian manner: expanding something from a brief initial given, with a variable ostinato, for example. No definitely shaped themes, then, but chains. Cells that expand and contract, attach and detach, like molecules.
RdB: Tchaikovski taught you a lot about orchestration, didn’t he? TK: Mahler and Stravinski, too. Those three. The model for orchestration, for me is Tchaikovski’s Sixth, the first movement up to the second theme inclusive.
RdB: Are you ever inspired by extramusical ideas? TK: I can imagine someone having a musical association awakened by the wind in the trees, but that has never been the case with me up until now.
12 RdB: As others have done in the last few decades, with varying degrees of success, you could take on yourself the task of renewing an idiom or genre, or making a stylistic breakthrough. TK: I am not under the impression that such things are expected of me. It would be very bad for me if I started asking myself about my place in musical history, if I should begin to compose not as I want to compose at that moment, but as a ‘great composer’ should be composing. You see people doing that, throwing their own identity away and straining to produce a Symphony or some other Classical Composition to add to their Complete Works. Just like all that whining we used to hear about the good and the great, and above all the sacrosanct fugue. I find fugue an outstandingly tiresome musical form. A lot of great music has been spoiled because a fugue just had to be stuck in somewhere. I mean the compulsive use of counterpoint, meaningless stretti, empty imitations, just to let people know that you could really compose.
13 CHAPTER 3
THE SAXOPHONE MUSIC
Tristan Keuris wrote seven complete works for the saxophone: Saxophone Quartet
(1970), Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Orchestra (1971), Concerto for Saxophone Quartet and Orchestra (1986), Three Sonnets (1989), and Canzone in (1990).23 The Canzone was not originally written for the saxophone but later adapted for it with the composer’s permission because of its championing by saxophonist, John-Edward Kelly. Keuris came to prefer the piece on saxophone rather than clarinet quickly after writing it due to John-Edward Kelly’s commitment and exemplary performance of the work.24 The Music for Saxophones was written for the Raschèr Saxophone Quartet and later expanded into the concerto version in the same year entitled, Concerto for Saxophone Quartet and Orchestra. Laudi, scored for choir and winds, also features the alto saxophone as a solo voice alongside vocal soloists indicating that he, given his orchestrational acumen and compositional experience, felt the saxophone would pair well with strings and voice. He also scored a significant part for saxophone quartet in his piece for 24 voices entitled, To Brooklyn Bridge (1988). The Raschèr Saxophone Quartet performed on the world-premiere in 1988 and the American premiere (1994) in New York City with Harold
Rosenbaum conducting.
The 1970s Saxophone Music
Though the saxophone works written in the 1980s represent Keuris’ most superlative writing for the instrument, the Saxophone Quartet and Concerto for Alto Saxophone and
23 Wennekes, Tristan Keuris: Artist and Craftsman Rolled Into One, 3-6. 24 M. Keuris, personal communication, February 25, 2017.
14 Orchestra are still essential points of development in his language. They serve as his opus four and five respectively and were commissioned by clarinetist/saxophonist in the Netherlands
Saxophone Quartet, Ed Bogaard. Bogaard was the dedicatee of what many scholars believe to be
Keuris’ first true opus entitled Play for clarinet and piano. Dr. Emile Wennekes, chair professor of post-1800 Music History at the Utrecht Conservatory, argued in his tributary document presented at Tristan Keuris’ memorial:
Keuris’s official list of compositions begins with Kwartet for orchestra (1967), a work that was later selected for the Gaudeamus Music Week and was thus the composer’s first piece to receive formal recognition. Nevertheless, this strongly Stockhausian-tinged (Gruppen) orchestral piece, with four instrumental groups pitted against each other, has much more the air to it of a composition student’s well-made study piece than an actual opus 1. Play, composed in the same year for clarinet and piano, is decidedly more individual and could thus make rightful claim to the opus 1 position. 25
Having listened to the Kwartet, I tend to agree with Wennekes’ assessment of the piece in that it sounds like a well-crafted academic exercise rather than a work derived from genuine inspiration.
After Play, Ed Bogaard commissioned Keuris for the Saxophone Quartet – at the time a genre that was relatively unheard of in the Netherlands. The piece itself was funded by the Buma
Culture Fund, is approximately eight minutes long, and utilizes the saxophone in a way that is relatively unexpressive. It shows an earlier stage in Keuris’ career and a lack of knowledge of the full expressive capabilities of the ensemble/instrument. The writing seems to have resorted to something stricter and more serial, which was unlikely for Keuris as he never developed an affinity for it even given his instructors’ respective backgrounds. Additionally, a plethora of extended techniques that were likely shown to him by Ed Bogaard and other saxophone
25 Wennekes, Tristan Keuris: Artist and Craftsman Rolled Into One, 9-10.
15 enthusiasts in the Netherlands were employed for most of the work. This apparent lack of inspiration was no fault of his own as it truly came down to an absence of exposure. The Raschèr
Saxophone Quartet was the only regularly performing saxophone quartet at the time and the only group with the faculty to represent the saxophone’s spectrum of sonic and expressive capabilities. Keuris would not be exposed to them until almost fourteen years later. His willingness to write the work regardless, was a demonstration of Keuris’ inquisitive, open- minded, and experimental personality. The piece was premiered on May 27, 1970. In September, it was broadcast by VPRO radio, and two months later it was performed in Paris. A close colleague of Keuris’, Leo Samama, wrote: “Despite its success, Keuris was soon displeased with the Saxophone Quartet. It was, nevertheless, his first foray into writing for saxophones, a terrain for which he was famous for decades.”26
The Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Orchestra, also written for Ed Bogaard, demonstrates some of the same issues as the quartet, but the writing is less constricted writing uses the saxophone more expressively. It contains five through-composed sections, fast, slow, fast, an extensive cadenza, and a coda. Samama, writer of the program notes contained in the The
Complete Works of Tristan Keuris box set, recalled:
“An English critic described the piece as ‘an inexplicable but intriguing synthesis of bebop saxophone, Messiaen gamelan, post-Webernian fragmentation and the harmony of a Hollywood arranger.’ When confronted with this during an interview with musicologist Elmer Schönberger, Keuris answered with his characteristic openness, ‘I have to concede, in all honesty, that it’s true. Only that part about the bebop sax, I’m not so sure about. When the piece was performed, my first thought was: I’m getting too slick, I better watch out! This is really good film music. How did that happen?’”27
26 Samama, The Complete Works of Tristan Keuris, 48. 27 Samama, The Complete Works of Tristan Keuris, 49.
16 I believe, however, that this is the first piece that truly bears Keuris personal mark. Emile
Wenneke wrote:
The [Concerto for alto saxophone and orchestra] is a key work in the early-period compositions. Already discernible in its five movements, flowing without interruption one into the next, are several characteristic features of Keuris’s music. We mention here the surprising turns taken in the voice leading and orchestration, the finely meted rhythmic complexity and virtuosity, and a noticeable preference for third and seventh structures.28
The saxophone works composed in the 1970s did serve the purposes of initial exposure to saxophone and the genre of saxophone quartet, which would lay the groundwork for a special meeting later in his life. “Tristan’s history with the classical saxophone is special. After he wrote two pieces (the first saxophone quartet and the concerto for alto saxophone) in the seventies he didn’t think he would write for saxophone again. In 1984, John-Edward Kelly knocked on our door and the rest is history”29
John & Tristan
Tristan’s widow, Marion Keuris, recalls their first meeting in an e-mail I received from her on February 21, 2017 regarding their friendship:
In 1984, John Edward Kelly approached Tristan with the plan to write a piece for the Raschèr Quartet. He came to our house on a Sunday afternoon. Tristan didn’t think he would write for saxophone again because he wrote already two pieces for saxophone. He wrote those two pieces on request of his friend Ed Bogaard from the Netherlands Saxophone Quartet. John Edward Kelly invited Tristan to come to listen to the extraordinary sound of the RSQ and to meet the other members of the Quartet. Carina Raschèr, Bruce Weinberger, and Linda Bangs. The sound of the RSQ was indeed different and they convinced Tristan by their sound/playing for him.30
28 Wennekes, Tristan Keuris: Artist and Craftsman Rolled Into One, 7. 29 M. Keuris, personal communication, October 6, 2016. 30 M. Keuris, personal communication, February 20, 2017.
17 Throughout the process of this collaboration, John-Edward and Tristan were in close contact. A deep friendship developed during this time and lasted for twelve years until Keuris passed away in 1996. Marion Keuris recalls a friendship based on mutual respect and profound love of music.
She said that they also shared a great sense of humor which made every visit of John’s also enjoyable for the rest of the family. John-Edward spending time with Marion, Tristan, and their two children Eva and Stijn was a regular occurrence while he lived in Germany. Marion recalled that, “We often went out to have a pizza with the children. They adored John. He could get along with children very well.”31 She said that Kelly even joined them on their holiday in Texel, an island in the North of Holland.
Beyond spending quality leisure and business time together, they also worked to advance each other’s art. Marion reflected that, “Because of JEK and Bruce Weinberger, Tristan was invited by the prestigious English Publishing House Novello & Co London (now ‘Music Sales’) to publish his music there in 1986.”32 She went on to say that John-Edward set up meetings for
Tristan and went with him to London. Keuris met with Giles Easterbrook from Novello & Co. who firmly believed in his music. From there, the pace of Tristan’s international recognition surged. The Concerto for Saxophone Quartet and Orchestra was a huge success for the quartet and Tristan. Keuris wrote the stand-alone version, Music for Saxophones, earlier in the same year and would later write Three Sonnets for John-Edward. As musicians, they understood one another:
Tristan and John were on the same level concerning music and although they were completely different they found each other at any time in music. I remember very clearly that we went out for a meal here in town [Hilversum] with the children. While waiting for the food, Tristan and John gave a fabulous concert on the restaurant table with forks and knives. The whole restaurant was watching/listening. I still see their faces, Tristan in his
31 M. Keuris, personal communication, February 20, 2017. 32 M. Keuris, personal communication, February 21, 2017.
18 early forties, John end of his twenties/beginning thirties. Young extremely talented men who had so much fun.33
Learning about this friendship has proved to be an unparalleled source of inspiration. I have been a long-term admirer of both Tristan Keuris and John-Edward Kelly and to see elements of profound respect, vulnerability, and love breathed into their story, is a luxury I wouldn’t have otherwise been afforded. It is paramount for these relationships, rare as they are, to exist between artists as it often fosters some of the most meaningful art known to us. To say that the friendship between John-Edward Kelly and Tristan Keuris achieved much in this way would be an understatement.
The Raschèr Saxophone Quartet and Concerto for Quartet and Orchestra
The Raschèr Saxophone Quartet (RSQ), founded in 1969 by Sigurd M. Raschèr, remains the only full-time performing saxophone quartet in the world. They have contributed a significant amount of repertoire to the quartet canon and inspired a multitude of notable composers to write for them. To name a few: Philip Glass, Zdenek Lukas, Kalevi Aho, Charles
Wuorinen, Iannis Xenakis, Hans Kox, Werner Wolf Glaser, and of course Tristan Keuris. They are part of a small minority of saxophonists that strive for a sound concept that Adolphe Sax originally intended for the instrument. This would explain the “extraordinary” and “different” sounds that struck Tristan Keuris upon first hearing them in 1984. As mentioned previously,
John-Edward Kelly was the first non-original member to enter the quartet, taking over for Sigurd
Raschèr in 1981. He remained in the quartet for ten years.
Keuris’ former teacher, Ton de Leeuw, was the first to encourage the Raschèr Saxophone
Quartet to pursue Tristan for a piece in hopes of once again interesting him in the saxophone.
33 M. Keuris, personal communication, February 22, 2017.
19 John-Edward Kelly documented that, “The composer was first openly skeptical of the proposition to “listen to ten minutes of a different kind of saxophone playing,” but he became quickly excited about the expressive possibilities of the original Saxophone tone.”34 After their initial few meetings in 1984, the RSQ arrived in Holland for the premiere of Keuris’s String
Quartet No. 2 in 1985 to discuss further plans concerning the quartet concerto. Between 1985 and the premiere, John-Edward frequented the Keuris’s home to discuss the development of the piece and the specifics about writing for saxophone. The premiere itself was a success; a brilliant demonstration of inspiration, virtuosic intensity, and artistic maturity on the part of the performers and the composer. Keuris’ appreciation of RSQ’s approach to the instrument never dwindled. The following quote, found in an interview conducted by Ad ‘s-Gravesande minutes before the 1987 premiere35 is evidence of that. “They practice a kind of alternative playing. I understand they’ve got many enemies in Holland, but after I heard them at concerts a few times,
I became aware that this way of saxophone playing makes you understand it is not a derivative instrument. Like having the clarinet here and the oboe there and something in between, or for playing entertainment. Nothing against that, by the way, but a different world.”36
The piece is truly an inspiration and is thought to be one of the exceptional highlights of
Keuris’ oeuvre. The writing utilizes the quartet in every way imaginable, at times demanding the most of each solo part. I categorize the quartet as a ‘maximalist’ work because of its dense scoring of overlapping rhythmic complexity, regular use of obscure time signatures, the extreme range demanded of each of the solo voices, and the drastic juxtaposition of characters. The writing for strings is similarly demanding, but Keuris was conscious in his awareness of balance
34 John-Edward Kelly, (1987). Tristan Keuris – Concerto for Saxophone Quartet and Orchestra (1986), 1. 35 A video of the premiere can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRsiVJCYNnw&t=58s 36 Tristan Keuris & Ad’s Gravesande, (1987). “The HF Tapes-THE INTERVIEWS.” YouTube. 2015. 11:21-16:24
20 or the possibility of over-scoring the work. A comment of Keuris’ regarding his writing for orchestra is commemorated by Dr. Emile Wennekes in the memorial service tributary document,
“I try to let the orchestra sound as ‘natural’ as possible. Use of a lot of short rests that give light and space so that everything can be heard. So, no lengthy brass chords muddying the orchestra and closing the sound. I use short accents as a sort of safety-valve – allowing the other voices to remain audible.” 37 This evident feature of Keuris’ writing can be heard in the recording of the premiere38 as the orchestra and saxophones are brilliantly intertwined in a symbiotic atmosphere that is not sonically competitive.
The characters of the work convey a wide spectrum of human emotion. At times, the character drives with unstoppable force, relentless and ferocious, evident in its vehement opposition to repose. In other moments, it portrays the deepest reflection, philosophical in nature and consumed by the anguish surrounding the human experience. The oscillation between these characters, combined with the virtuosic playing necessary to perform the work, truly creates an emotional and exciting journey for the listener that will likely leave them reeling. I remember the feeling of exhilaration I experienced after hearing the Music for Saxophones in the first year of undergraduate study, and it has lived with me since then.
The Inadvertent Creation of a Genre
It is unclear whether Tristan Keuris would have been consciously aware of this or not, but his Concerto for Saxophone Quartet and Orchestra created a new genre of composition by being the first to score the saxophone quartet as a concerto soloist. Charles Wuorinen followed suit in
37 Wennekes, Tristan Keuris: Artist and Craftsman Rolled Into One, 9. 38 The premiere of the Concerto for Saxopohone Quartet and Orchestra with the Rascher Saxophone Quartet and the Hague Philharmonic Orchestra at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam can be heard here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRsiVJCYNnw&list=RDPRsiVJCYNnw&index=1
21 1992 with his Concerto for Saxophone Quartet and Orchestra and subsequent stand-alone version entitled Quartet in the same year. Philip Glass wrote his Concerto for Saxophone
Quartet in 1995 that also has a stand-alone version. Anders Nilsson wrote a Concerto Grosso for
Saxophone Quartet and Orchestra also in 1995. Matthew Rosenblum composed a work entitled
Möbius Loop in 2001 for saxophone quartet and orchestra that also has a stand-alone version.
Brett Dean wrote a work entitled Water Music in 2004 for saxophone quartet and chamber orchestra. Sally Beamish wrote a Chamber Concerto for Saxophone Quartet and Orchestra in
2007. Kalevi Aho composed a Concerto for Saxophone Quartet and Orchestra in 2008. In 2015,
Chen Yi composed a piece entitled Ba Yin (The Eight Sounds) for saxophone quartet and orchestra. This is not an exhaustive list, they are merely the works I chose to highlight.
The Three Sonnets and The Canzone
The Three Sonnets were written in 1989 just two years after the premiere of the quartet concerto. John-Edward Kelly requested the concerto and Tristan agreed. While it was being written, Kelly would again visit the Keuris’ home frequently and they would come to visit him in
Germany. According to Marion Keuris, it was during this time that “John became a real friend of our family.”39 The piece demonstrates an in-depth understanding of Kelly’s ability and artistry and was written with seemingly boundless constraints.
In 1989, Keuris was intensively involved in writing his Michelangelo Songs and spent most the of late 1980s in a vocal phase of writing. The title, Three Sonnets, makes sense given this context. There is some speculation as to whether a specific text was used as inspiration for the piece. Keuris does not reference specific sonnets anywhere in the score, but must have
39 M. Keuris, personal communication, February 21, 2017.
22 examined several options while trying to find the perfect text for the song cycle he was writing during the same time. According to John Edward Kelly, Keuris took the time to study them thoroughly. He recalled, “Before beginning with the actual composition of the Three Sonnets, he
[Keuris] made an extensive formal analysis of Shelley’s Ode to the Westwind, which impressed me as one of the most complete and insightful I had ever seen.”40 The proximity of this analysis to the completion of Three Sonnets does not prove that they are linked. In fact, Marion Keuris is quite sure that they are not, saying that, Tristan absolutely would have mentioned this type of inspiration in the score, which he did not.41 Either way, the piece does show Keuris in an especially vocal mood, but nowhere are these sonnets resigned to being purely lyrical.
Just as with the quartet concerto, Keuris intertwines the virtuosic techniques of the saxophone with a superbly balanced and nuanced orchestra. It is truly scored as a piece of chamber music as both the ensemble and soloist are featured throughout the work. Each movement contains a specific character. The first movement begins with a melodic saxophone introduction embellished with cascades of tones evocative of impressionism; one might easily think of Debussy’s La Mer. As the movement progresses, Keuris’ intensity, vitality, and passion emerges to build a climax of rhythm and harmony. From the climax, the movement decays just as organically to finish the movement. The second movement is a three-and-a-half-minute explosion of virtuosity for the saxophonist that is unrelenting, leaving no need for an “official” cadenza. It is a perfect example of the juxtaposition of mood found in much of Keuris’ music.
The third movement recalls the first, to complete the Three Sonnets. It begins with the brilliant scoring of the flute as a mirror image to the material the saxophone began with in the first
40 Kelly, Improvisation upon Themes by Tristan Keuris? Never! A Few Thoughts about Why, 1. 41 M. Keuris, personal communication, February 24, 2017.
23 movement, creating and looking-glass-esque reflection. Kelly recalled a discussion of the form of the work with Keuris, “Once, in 1989 while discussing the Three Sonnets, I asked him why he had changed a single tone in the third movement in an otherwise exact recapitulation of the opening of the first movement. His reply: ‘It’s because of the form you see? The gesture of the entire piece is like this [he made a great arching movement], and when the first material returns, the form is not ascending, but descending!’”42 The movement proceeds in a lyrical fashion to the end, finishing with the upward musical representation of an unanswered question.
The approximately seven-minute Canzone for clarinet was a commission for the 1990
Tromp Competition from the Dr. Ir. Th.P. Tromp Foundation. Keuris wrote a brief introduction to the work:
The clarinet is a pre-eminently virtuoso instrument. Passages that sound insanely difficult can be relatively easy. With this piece, however, I have attempted to test the more concealed virtuosity of the competitors. The seemingly simple beginning demands great control from the performer; it is in the dynamics, the rhythmic aspect, and the spotless switching between registers that the real difficulties of this piece lie. The agitated middle segment, in contrast, allows the performer to demonstrate his virtuosity in the more usual sense. The exceedingly delicate, if not nearly crystalline, closing segment is rather like a condensed reflection of the opening passage. Here, in my opinion, is where the greatest demands are made on the player’s concentration, tone control etc. In summary, one could say that I tried in this work to cast a light on the many aspects of clarinet playing so that not only the competitor’s virtuosity, rhythmic insight and musicality could be judged, but also whether he could summon the concentration while under pressure – seated alone on the stage – to convey the musical message to the audience.
As mentioned previously, John-Edward Kelly’s championing of this work led Keuris to willingly authorize the work for saxophone, a version he would ultimately come to prefer.
The piece is rich with of the same rhythmic complexity that is one of Keuris’ trademarks.
The complexity is not born in consistent density of rhythm, but rather how the purely simple interacts with the overtly complex to add dimension and breadth to the work. The same is true
42 Kelly, Improvisation upon Themes by Tristan Keuris? Never! A Few Thoughts about Why, 2.
24 for many of his other works, but it is more observable in an unaccompanied work such as this.
He demonstrates a brilliant knowledge of the range of the clarinet and how to use it expressively, which translates well to the saxophone. A former clarinetist, John-Edward Kelly discovered this immediately, leading to his choice to adapt the work for saxophone. Canzone begins with a very wide interval of an open 12th (5th). This interval appears again and again throughout the first set of sub phrases, in measures 20 and 33, but reimagined each time in different pitch classes and directions, like an idea in search of a more convincing identity. The interval itself lacks identity in that the presence of other tones determine its modal purpose; this is the nature of this interval.
The intensity increases into the heart of the piece and is created by a compression of the interval down by a half step and consequent congestion of rapid chromatic and diatonic tones in measures 50-91. This developmental section, built on the augmented 4th ends with the afterthought of a perfect 4th and the reprise of the perfect 12th in measure 93-94 carries the piece reflectively to the end.
Canzone conveys to me a certain depth of emotion and loneliness of the human soul. The constant search for identity by filling the void with anything imaginable, morphing oneself into something else in an attempt to infuse meaning into one’s existence only to realize that meaning cannot be merely forced. John-Edward Kelly performed this work at Tristan Keuris’s memorial service in January of 1997.
25 List of Known Errata - 1980s Saxophone Works
Music For Saxophones
Soprano
• Measure 5 – should read as “2/8 + 7/32” instead of “2/8 + 5/32” • Rehearsal 32 – First quarter-note of the second bar is missing a dot. • Rehearsal 54 – The first eighth-note of the third beat in the sixth measure should read as a G natural rather than a G#. Alto
• Measure 5 – should read as “2/8 + 7/32” instead of “2/8 + 5/32” • Rehearsal 17 – The second half of beat two should read as a Gb rather than a G natural. • Rehearsal 47 - The “E#” contained in the third beat should be an E natural • Rehearsal 48 – The first pitch of the third beat should be a B natural rather than a Bb • Rehearsal 48 – The second measure contains an extra sixteenth-note, eliminate the first sixteenth-note G tied to the dotted-eighth G to solve this. • Rehearsal 62 – First pitch should read as an Eb rather than an E natural, second half of second beat should read as a Gb rather than G natural. Tenor
• Measure 5 – should read as “2/8 + 7/32” instead of “2/8 + 5/32” • Rehearsal 3 – the triplet bracket extends one beat too far • Rehearsal 67 – The first 16th note division of the third beat should be a C# rather than the D natural printed.
Baritone
• Measure 5 – should read as “2/8 + 7/32” instead of “2/8 + 5/32” • Rehearsal 8 – triplet bracket in second measure should include first A#1 quarter-note division. • Rehearsal 77 – first measure second quarter-note division should be read as an E rather than an F.
Three Sonnets
First Movement
• Fifth grace-note of the initial pick-up measure should read as a B rather than an A. This matches the reprise of this material in measure 119. • Measure 13 – F# should be the final tone of the measure to connect the D and G#.
26 Second Movement
• Measure 99 – Beat one should read as a half-note rather than a quarter-note • Measure 102 – Tempo marking should read as “half-note = 63” rather than “quarter- note=63”
Third Movement
• Measure 49 – Rhythm should read as two 32nd-notes bracketed to a dotted eighth note or one eighth-note and one-sixteenth note. • Measure 83 – Second half of the third beat should be a dotted sixteenth-note. • Measure 98 – Measure is missing an eighth-note, the final subdivision of the measure should be an quarter-note rather than an eighth-note. • Measure 113 – Second half of beat two should read as a G#
Canzone
• Measure 45 – Triplet bracket in the second half of the third beat should contain 32nd-note triplets rather than 16th-note triplet. • Measure 76 – the “3” above the third beat refers only the 64th notes making it a nine-note shape. • Measure 96 – the fifth tone of the septuplet marked as B# should be a B natural.
27 CHAPTER 4
ANALYSIS OF MUSIC FOR SAXOPHONES
The Music for Saxophones is the stand-alone version of the previously discussed
Concerto for Saxophone Quartet and Orchestra. It was composed before the concerto, but always with the concerto in mind. John Edward Kelly wrote, “…Keuris first thought of a pure quartet, then later of a concerto for quartet and orchestra; but after hearing two of the Raschèr
Quartet’s concerts, he became convinced that a single work could not adequately contain his breadth of idea for the ensemble. This originated the idea of composing two works based upon the same fundamental musical material.”43 Although the concerto expands the ideas in the stand- alone quartet, I believe the Music for Saxophones stands as a purer, more analyzable representation of Keuris’s original ideas for the piece. His writing in this work and others can be viewed as ‘regional’ in that it will establish a landscape, live in it, then move on to another landscape. The purpose of this analysis is to provide a suggested approach, rather than a template, to analyzing other Keuris works.
Keuris uses a relatively simple form for the work, which comes as no surprise based on his openness about that aspect of his writing. It is an 18 minute through-composed masterpiece but, with little effort, I have divided it into movements that I will label as ‘regions’ so as not to confuse future performers with antiquated nomenclature. However, I have included some sonata- form terms in parentheses next to some of the regions for comparison. The following list gives my version of the form using rehearsal numbers consistent with the score and parts. Some regions are divided into subsections.
43 Kelly, (1987). Tristan Keuris – Concerto for Saxophone Quartet and Orchestra, 1.
28 INTRODUCTION: Rehearsal 0 – 10
REGION ONE (Exposition): Rehearsal 10 – 26 Subsection A: 10 – 16 Subsection B: 16 – 23 Subsection C: 23 – 26
REGION TWO (Development): Rehearsal 26 – 46 Subsection D: 26 – 37 Subsection E: 37 – 40 Subsection F: 40 – 46
CADENZA: Rehearsal 46 – 51
REGION THREE: Rehearsal 51 – 59 Subsection G: 57 – 59
REGION FOUR (Recapitulation): Rehearsal 59 – 70 Subsection H: 59 – 64 Subsection I: 64 – 68 Subsection J: 68 – 70
CODA: Rehearsal 70 – Double-bar
Introduction (Rehearsal 0 – 10)
The Introduction (Rehearsal 0 – 10) unfolds like a complex narrative that serves to introduce the material of the entire work. The basis for this entire work is the augmented 4th interval and Keuris establishes this vertically, in the opening interval between the tenor saxophone and baritone saxophone, and horizontally in the first four tones of the alto line. The rest of the work is built like an expansion of this interval.
29
Example 1 – Music for Saxophones: measure 1 – 3
One can also observe in this example that he writes a perfect 5th in the tenor melody, but it is encapsulated by dissonance in such a way that it does not sound consonant in the given context.
These masked perfect fifths also play a consistent role throughout the work. The falling minor 3rd as well as the rising major 7th in mm. 2-3 of the tenor line are thematic as well.
The presence of the augmented 4th is worth noting a bit further here as the initial bars spell out a series of them that returns as thematic and accompaniment material throughout the work. This will henceforth be referred to as the “Tritone Theme” or “TT” for short. The series listed is in chronological order with an arrow indicating the upward direction of the interval and backward slash indicating the downward direction. An example of this is also provided below:
[G#^D] [C#^G] [B^F# \ F]
Example 2 – Music for Saxophones: measure 5
There are several instances of sustained vertical alignment in the introduction that also set the example for the rest of the piece. The following are but a few examples of the cluster chords, and synthetic harmony that Keuris uses to solidify the language and color of the piece, most of
30 which contain the augmented 4th. The first one is spelled out B – F – C#- C, but can be respelled as C# - F – B to form a dominant chord plus the extra C to distort the chord. These will be called
“Distortion Tones” or “DTs” for short.
Example 3 – Music for Saxophones: measure 11
The next example contains a major sonority in second inversion in the second measure spelled out D# - C – G# - B. It is easier to envision this enharmonically spelled and rearranged as Ab - C
– Eb with the B added as the DT.
Example 4 – Music for Saxophones: measure 24 – 25
31 The next example, is of a minor sonority in first inversion spelled D# - A – G# - B, that can be slightly reimagined as G# - B – D# with A as the DT. This chord resolves to two minor 3rds stacked on top of each other, A – C - G# - B.
Example 5 – Music for Saxophones: measure 28-29
Keuris makes an especially skillful use of metric modulation throughout this work and much of his oeuvre. This is an example, still from the introduction, that uses the eighth-note triplets in the measure prior to determine the time signature of the following measure.
Essentially, the triplets become the denominator of the following measure’s time signature.
Below is the example from the score found in the introduction and the legend found on the bottom of the page that defines it.
Example 6 – Music for Saxophones: measure 34 – 35
32 Region One (Subsections A – C / Rehearsal 10 – 26)
In Region 1, Subsection A (Rehearsal 10 -16), the ideas introduced earlier are now able to take flight. The piece provides a clear sense that it has established itself and can move on comfortably. In the first measure of this section, we see the Tritone Theme in an accompaniment role underneath the melody in the soprano which demonstrates the masked perfect 5th. The tenor takes up the TT after the alto has concluded it.
Example 7 – Music for Saxophones: measure 40 - 41
Another interesting aspect about Subsection A is the presence of modal modulation to the minor
3rd beginning in measure 46, preceding rehearsal number 11. This sets up what inevitably becomes a series of sequences between all four voices that continue exchanging control of harmonic motion. The quartet ascends through the range until the top two voices reach the peak of the phrase and the lower duo demonstrates parallel Minor 3rds as if to hammer the point home. This type of ascent happens on several occasions throughout the work and is often coupled with a compression of the augmented 4th interval. The example below shows the end of
33 the ascent.
Example 8 – Music for Saxophones: measure 57 – 60
A unique feature that is also observable in Subsection A is the upper voices in hocket. They are seen in this more relaxed section at rehearsal 13 exchanging a melody that leaps up by a major
7th and down by an augmented 4th delayed by an escape-tone. This feature is ubiquitous in the work because he had an extensive knowledge of John-Edward Kelly’s range which paired well with the range of the soprano. The composite of the two upper voices in this piece often form one complete line. Below is a snapshot of the soprano and alto parts together.
Example 9 – Music for Saxophones: measure 66 – 69
34 The beginning of Region 1, Subsection B (Rehearsal 16- 23) brings back a less overt more melismatic version of the Tritone Theme between the alto and tenor while another beautiful sustained melody in the soprano descends by a minor 3rd and rises by a major 7th. Perhaps, one the more interesting features of this section is the distinct convergence of all four voices into a driving rhythmic force that Keuris is known for. He intelligently builds sixteenth-rests into each line to let it and the players breathe from time to time. Still, the composite sounds like continuous sixteenths. The following is the start of rehearsal 17 entitled Doppio Moviemento.
Example 10 – Music for Saxophones: measure 85 – 87
The section continues as such and then rhythmically disintegrates organically between rehearsal
18 – 20. In Keuris’ writing, this type of de-evolution of a section is common and expertly crafted so that the listener isn’t aware of it until the next section is already upon them. By the time the music reaches six measures before rehearsal 20, the quartet is oscillating between bare chord structures. The chords consistently maintain chromatic dissonance, even if once moves to a more consonant tone, another voice will move to take its place creating a feeling of unrest. This is the
Distortion Tone seen in a broader concept.
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Example 11 – Music for Saxophones: measure 108 – 111
Subsection B finishes with another melismatic surge of the TT at rehearsal 20, almost identical to the material found at rehearsal 16. Interesting to note here is the especially high scoring of the tenor, confusing the listener into not knowing which saxophone they might be hearing. This is one of the techniques used to make the ensemble sound like it has more than just four voices.
Note also that the tenor (the bottom line in this example) is moving in minor 3rds and one major
7th.
Example 12 – Music for Saxophones: measure 114 – 117
The quartet then tip-toes through augmented 4ths and major 9ths at rehearsal 2, trading off their lines each measure. Rehearsal 21 – 23 carry the listener through a transition that revisits germs of previous material and organically dwindles into a more reflective Subsection C. The final chord
36 of the subsection is scored B – D – F – Bb. Clearly this is another example of his use of a common sonority, in this case major in second inversion, with B added as the Distortion Tone to clash with the tonic and create an augmented 4th.
Example 13 – Music for Saxophones: measure 139 – 140
Subsection C is also a short transition that is scored like a chorale – or at least the closest scoring to a chorale in Keuris’ music. For the most part the quartet is moving through sustains together. There is an echo of the TT in the alto part at m. 143 and most of the chords contain a
DT, but still the feeling of homogony, albeit dissonant, is unusual. The scoring pares down to just the top two voices again, removing the grounding of the lower voices and providing the listener with the impression of floating. During these measures the hocket can be seen clearly between the alto and soprano. The section ends with just the alto voice suspending a concert G into niente.
Example 14 – Music for Saxophones: measure 147 – 150
37 Region Two (Subsections D – F / Rehearsal 26 – 46)
Region Two is structured like a Rondo that is built on a variant of the Tritone Theme.
The variant is often heard descending in this region as compared to the mostly ascending version in Region One. If it does ascend, it most often will immediately descend again. The pitch classes are comparable to the first section, so the chosen “Tritone Theme” nomenclature will remain consistent. That the variant spends more of its time descending adds to this region sounding heavier and cathartic. Below is an example of the TT variant in the baritone line at the onset of this new region.
Example 15 – Music for Saxophones: measure 160 – 162
An example of the group driving the TT variant downward in the second bar.
Example 16 – Music for Saxophones: measure 163 – 164
38 This deliberate hammering of the TT variant carries through all of Subsection D (Rehearsal
Numbers 26 – 37). The TT variant is passed through the quartet like a baton in a relay race. Each voice’s handling of it gets shorter before giving it away to another voice. We see a clear example of this type of exchange and a simultaneous hocketing of the alto and soprano, four measures before rehearsal 32. The two voices are beginning a chromatic ascent and continue to trade places until the ascent is complete in the measure before rehearsal 33.
Example 17 – Music for Saxophones: measure 188 – 191
The material in this Subsection then repeats in an almost identical fashion between rehearsal numbers 33 – 37 and again includes a similar chromatic ascent with the composite melody between the alto and soprano voice.
At the beginning of Subsection E (Rehearsal Numbers 37 – 40), Keuris writes an immediate shift to the macro-meter where the tempo 132 based on the quarter-note transforms into tempo 66 based on the half-note. There is an overt statement of the TT in the alto line during the quartet entrance to this new section. The shift to the macro-meter and statement of the TT are shown below. This example also shows a chord containing an augmented 4th used to distort a perfect 5th. This is an augmentation of the Distortion Tone into a ‘Distortion Chord.’
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Example 18 – Music for Saxophones: measure 228 – 230
It is as if Keuris wanted to take an extra moment to state the thematic material out in the open as a moment of repose before the musical storm resurges again at rehearsal 40. For the remainder of
Subsection E, variants of the TT are restated in the alto voice, the chord structures keep the [D –
Ab] augmented 4th between the baritone and tenor, and the texture thins out into a unison F# between the tenor, alto, and soprano.
Subsection F (Rehearsal Numbers 40 – 46) is a resurgence of the stormy material containing the Bruscamente marking of Subsection D, rounding out the form of Region Two to substantiate the idea of the Rondo. The TT variant is demonstrated in much the same way as before, the voice-crossing of the two upper voices to create composite melody, and the chromatic ascent. This time, however, Keuris expands the material of the ascent further into the stratosphere for all four voices coupled with a molto ritardando over eight measures. This is the first true climax of the piece, positioning the tessituric peaks prior to it as subsidiary and deceptive. The example below shows where the ascent would have ended – similar to its
40 previous sibling-releases at 33 and 37 – marked by a sixteenth rest before beat two in the second measure of the first frame. The rest of the climax is included and to be read left to right.
Example 19 – Music for Saxophones: measure 284 – 293
The final chord in the bottom right frame is voiced as [C#-A-C-G#] with the C obviously functioning as the Distortion Tone.
Cadenza (Rehearsal 46 – 51)
The section following is truly a Cadenza divided between four voices. It should be mentioned that, although the Music for Saxophones was composed first, it was always with the Concerto for
41 Saxophone Quartet and Orchestra in mind. This is made evident by how Keuris scores activity in one voice at a time and the other three as accompaniment. It is also clear that he had a cadenza in mind by the fact that the end of each voice’s fraction is the subsequent beginning of the next voice’s part, linked by an overlapping unison pitch. I have extracted these links from the cadenza in chronological order and labeled corresponding voices involved in the exchange above the excerpts.
Example 20 – Music for Saxophones: measure 302 – 303 (Alto to Soprano)
Example 21 – Music for Saxophones: measure 306 – 307 (Soprano to Alto)
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Example 22 – Music for Saxophones: measure 310 – 311 (Alto to Baritone to Tenor)
Following this section, the soprano brings the group into a pseudo-arrival on the fourth measure of Rehearsal 49, which serves as the strongest part of the section. The alto then assertively leads the way out of the Cadenza by playing the first three tones of a minor scale [F-G#-A] and then
[D#-E#-F#] that are interrupted by two Augmented 4ths [C-F#] and [A-D#]. The pattern rhythmically slows down creating a heavier demonstration of it each time it’s played. Each time the alto lands on its accented tone, the other three voices are delayed by an eighth note to echo the accent.
Example 23 – Music for Saxophones: measure 320 – 323
Despite the desire to move back to familiar material, the alto does not get its wish as the quartet settles further into meditative energy for the next region.
43 Region Three (Subsection G / Rehearsal 51 – 59)
Region Three takes the idea of featuring each voice from the Cadenza and expands upon it. The soprano, tenor, and baritone each have their own fully-formed solos, each contained in a unique accompanimental atmosphere. The alto likely gets left out of this set of features because it played the most significant role during the Cadenza. The region begins with soprano establishing the cantabile marking at Rehearsal 51 and the alto conceding somewhat begrudgingly, responding with a sextuplet line containing two of the Augmented 4ths from the
Tritone Theme.
Example 24 – Music for Saxophones: measure 366 – 368
The soprano and alto dialogue is interrupted by the tenor who is marked as the first soloist of the section. The tenor takes three bars to truly establish itself as the dominant voice one measure before Rehearsal 52 and comfortably settles into its cantabile marking. In the second measure of rehearsal 52 the tenor states a variant of the TT, shown below.
Example 25 – Music for Saxophones: measure 374 – 375
44 The rest of the solo makes lyrical use of some of Keuris’s favorite intervals for the piece, centered mostly around the Minor 3rd with the occasional rising major 7th and repeated use of the augmented 4th [D-G#]. What’s particularly interesting is the range that is used. Keuris places the tenor in its third octave for much of the latter half of the solo with it ending on its third octave altissimo C (concert Bb). This creates an effect similar to Stravinsky’s scoring of the second bassoon solo in the first measures of the Rite of Spring, infusing drama that wouldn’t otherwise be as effective if the same pitches were scored in the more comfortable range of the first bassoon or in this case, the soprano or alto. Below are the last few measures of the tenor solo taken directly from the tenor part transposed in Bb. The tenor hands this concert Bb to the soprano with a unison elision that will be the beginning of the soprano solo.
Example 26 – Music for Saxophones: measure 382 – 385
The quartet accompaniment is ethereal and crystalline. It is sustained and marked sempre pp creating an icy backdrop over which the tenor paints a picture. The baritone drones a single concert G# while the alto and soprano sustain a whole step between D and E that often combine with the tenor solo in the same range.
The soprano solo begins at Rehearsal 54 and is mostly centered around the major 7th. It is written with a cantabile marking as well but accompanied by an entirely different color. Keuris still scores the baritone with a pedal role that adds the occasional augmented fourth, but gives the alto and tenor a rhythmically complex part that must remain subsidiary to the solo. If executed correctly the alto and tenor parts create a fluttering texture. This is a common characteristic of
45 Keuris’s writing that I call ‘hidden virtuosity.’ It is the idea that not all virtuosic playing has to be overt or explicitly scored. An example of this is copied below; the alto and tenor lines show several augmented 4th interruptions.
Example 27 – Music for Saxophones: measure 382 – 384
The quartet meets on common ground at Rehearsal 55 with unison accents on successive downbeats with the soprano still in a solo. The end of the soprano solo is the beginning of the baritone solo, elided with a unison concert D. There is a F# Distortion Tone present for the final sonority [F#-G-Bb-D] of the section before the baritone proceeds unaccompanied with its solo.
The solo revisits the intervallic material given by the other soloists in a more comfortable range for the instrument.
Subsection G occurs between Rehearsal 57 – 59 and is once again a smattering of content from previous regions of the piece, including an upper-voice composite melody, and another ascent. The section clearly indicates a shift in energy and a return to familiar material.
46 Region Four (Subsections H – J / Rehearsals 59 – 70)
If this were truly a sonata form, this section would serve as the ‘Recapitulation’ as it is a return to material from the ‘Exposition.’ It does introduce some new content as well which will be the basis of most of the discussion regarding this region.
Subsection H, Rehearsal 59 – 64, restates the material found in Rehearsal 14 – 18 almost identically. The Tritone Theme is heard immediately in the alto voice and traded between the tenor and alto as before. Those two voices are shown below. The third measure in the alto line is also an example of the ‘hidden virtuosity’ where the alto is suddenly found playing a rapid passage in an isolated rhythmic set based on triplets and a broken octatonic scale rather than the
TT. It is masked by the rhythmic juxtaposition of the tenor below and the melody in the soprano above.
Example 28 – Music for Saxophones: measure 419 – 421
The crescendo of the section is once again marked by the convergence of all four voices creating composite and overlapping sixteenth notes that ascend through synthetic octatonic scales. This begins at Rehearsal 62 where the tempo modulates from a quarter-note tempo of 69 to an eighth- note tempo of 138.
In the measure preceding Subsection I, Rehearsal 64 – 68, a descending variant of the TT is heard thinly scored between the alto and soprano signaling the final collapse of the TT
47 supported by a poco ritardando through that measure only. The second measure of this example shows this transition.
Example 29 – Music for Saxophones: measure 444 – 447
Note in this example the material at Rehearsal 64. The material of the Tritone Theme is reversed with most of the pattern centered around the perfect fifth. It’s obvious Keuris wanted to drive this point home with his scoring of all four voices in execution of this change. Throughout this section, the perfect 5th emerges as something overtly juxtaposed rather than masked as it was previously in the work. The resulting texture is deliberately indecisive and the subsequent effect is exciting. Below is a clear example of both intervals competing for dominance found at
Rehearsal 67. Keuris thins out the texture leading up to the trailing thought of the tenor voice, creating a moment of repose before the impactful restatement of the new material. This propels the listener into the next subsection.
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Example 30 – Music for Saxophones: measure 468 – 470
Subsection J, Rehearsal 68 – 70, is a repeat of Rehearsal 35 - 37 that emerges flawlessly out of the new material. The composite line between the alto and the soprano is once again present while the tenor and baritone support the build to a climax that this time ends on concert F octaves in the quartet. This is the first time Keuris scores the quartet in such a convicted unison and under a fermata no less.
Example 31 – Music for Saxophones: measure 485 – 488
49 Coda (Rehearsal 70 – Double Bar)
Just as soon as the perfect 5th material emerges in Region Four it is quickly disintegrated by the Coda. The example above shows the Coda looking back to the beginning of the piece in its fragmented statement of the Tritone Theme. Marked non-legato with beat-heavy accents in all four voices, the Coda takes on a driving quality that is unrelenting and unstoppable. At Rehearsal
71, the quartet attacks eighth-note length cluster chords: [F-E-Bb-A], [A-Eb-D-C#], and [G-Ab-
D-C#]. At Rehearsal 72, all four voices ‘peel-off’ to their own statements of TT variants. The alto and soprano are heard intertwined one last time just a sixteenth-note off from one another.
Example 32 – Music for Saxophones: measure 505 – 508
These intertwining TT variants eventually come together in a brief and jaunty 3/8 based largely in the sixteenth-note subdivision. Each voice’s intermittent eighth-notes are filled by another voice’s sixteenth-notes, similar to his writing in earlier sections, but short and eighth-note.
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Example 33 – Music for Saxophones: measure 520 – 526
All of this leads to the final true climax of the piece beginning at Rehearsal 76 when the quartet arrives on concert F# in octaves. This arrival is a half-step above the previous unison arrival and will be seen again before the end of the piece. From there the quartet climbs dramatically through a molto allargando to the peak of the climax in another cluster-chord [G#-B-G-B]. A sempre fff follows the release of this sustain coupled with an accelerando poco a poco marking sustained over eight measures to return the quartet back to quarter-note tempo 138. This energy is driving to the end except for one brief pause to assert a dramatic unison sweep up to the concerto F#, shown below.
Example 34 – Music for Saxophones: measure 552 – 553
51 The piece finishes with the quartet driving the Tritone Theme into the ground and the baritone gets the final clear proclamation of the TT in the penultimate measure.
Example 35 – Music for Saxophones: measure 554 – 557
52 CHAPTER 5
CONCLUSION
The Canzone and Three Sonnets will not be analyzed as thoroughly in this document as the Music for Saxophones. Arguably, the clarity of language in the solo works is clearer than that of the Music for Saxophones, rendering similar exhaustive analysis almost entirely unnecessary.
Regardless, Keuris’ last two works for saxophone remain two quintessential pieces in the repertoire. Three Sonnets especially remains an indispensable cornerstone written for the most virtuosic soloist on the instrument, John-Edward Kelly. It is the most mature of the three pieces and indicates a decidedly different style for Keuris, one of a more vocal quality. This quality infuses an element that, just like the Canzone, seems to convey an isolation of the human soul and pondering of the meaning of one’s existence that Keuris’ earlier works do not.
Ill-fated as it is that composers like Tristan Keuris, or perhaps Louis Andriessen, are only just now beginning to come into greater prominence from the Netherlands, I believe it is simply an issue of a late start. Though they are considered hallmark to the people of the Netherlands and surrounding countries, they are still not as internationally conspicuous as their art would merit. In my opinion, this is due largely to the cultural backdrop and history of the country being musically suffocated by political conflict, financial struggle, and war until the late 1800s. I anticipate a continued increase in the awareness and appreciation for the masterworks that have and will be written.
Tristan Keuris is, as Wennekes stated, the perfect balance of artist and craftsman rolled into one. His music is one of both architectural perfection and pure human spirit, unabashedly demanding of the highest level of virtuoso musician. The saxophone is seldom more than one step away from novelty due to its place in history, lack of superlative repertoire, and misguided
53 identity. The saxophone repertoire has craved works such as these and, since they have existed for fifteen years or longer, they are long overdue a place in the canon. Resolute effort is needed from the saxophone community at large to accomplish this, but alas it is not difficult to support great art. John-Edward Kelly’s and Tristan Keuris’ relationship and the masterworks that derived from it remain an inspiration that should not be left to fall by the wayside. This document is the first step in the preservation and continuation of their legacy.
“A composer should continuously lead the public astray. Music is not served by truth.
Good music exists by the grace of cunning and deception”
–Tristan Keuris
54 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Amsterdam History. (2003). Retrieved February 17, 2017, from http://www.amsterdam.info/basics/history/
Conservatoires Netherlands | Music Schools Netherlands. (2017). Retrieved February 14, 2017, from https://www.musicalchairs.info/netherlands/conservatoires
Cotton, M. “Obituary: Tristan Keuris.” Independent. 1997. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-tristan-keuris-1316201.html
De Beer, R., & Keuris, T. (1982). Movements by Tristan Keuris. ‘I must always feel: How the hell did you do that?’, 1-12.
De Groot, R.. & Samama, L. (1996). Ton de Leeuw – Memorial Website. Retrieved February 22, 2017, from http://tondeleeuw.com/
Donemus publishing house of contemporary classical music. (2012). Retrieved February 11, 2017, from http://donemus.nl/tristan-keuris/
Easterbrook, G. (1988). Concerto for Saxophone Quartet and Orch.
Kelly, Kristin. “John-Edward Kelly.” TCPalm. February 18, 2015. http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/tcpalm/obituary.aspx?pid=174176810
Kelly, J. E. (2004). Curriculum Vitae & Professional Record, 3.
Kelly, J. E. (1999). Improvisation upon Themes by Tristan Keuris? Never! A Few Thoughts about Why, 1-3.
Kelly, J. E. (2003). John-Edward Kelly. From the press…, 6.
Kelly, J. E. (1987). Tristan Keuris – Concerto for Saxophone Quartet and Orchestra (1986).
Kelly, J. E. “Tristan Keuris Canzone.” YouTube. 1994. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVLRmRnWvnk
Keuris, M. E-mail messages. November, 2016 – February, 2017.
Keuris, T. (1987) “The HF Tapes-THE INTERVIEWS.” YouTube. 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=am4Grt-XCgA&t=998s
Keuris, T. (1987) “The HF Tapes – Tristan Keuris:Concerto.” YouTube. 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRsiVJCYNnw
Keuris, T. (1986) “Tristan Keuris - Music for Saxophones.” YouTube. 2013.
55 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ed5ySHkr024
Keuris, T. Music for Saxophones (1986). Novella & Company: London, 1986.
Keuris T. Three Sonnets (1989). Novello & Company: London, 1989.
Keuris, T. Canzone (1989, rev. 1990). Shawnee Press: Nashville, TN, 1989-1990.
Keuris, T. Alto Saxophone Concerto (1971). Novello & Company: London, 1971.
Keuris, T. Saxofoonkwartet (1970). Donemus: Netherlands, 1970.
Netherlands. (2017). Retrieved February 17, 2017, from https://www.britannica.com/place/Netherlands/History
Raschèr, C. E-mail messages. February, 2017.
Samama, L. Tristan Keuris 1946 – 1996. The Complete Works of Tristan Keuris. Radio Netherlands Worldwide, 2010. 42-65.
Samama, L. (2014). Tristan Keuris. Retrieved February 10, 2017, from http://www.musicsalesclassical.com/composer/long-bio/Tristan-Keuris
Wennekes, E. (1997). Tristan Keuris: Artist and Craftsma Rolled Into One. Translated by John Lydon, Muse Translations, 1997.
56 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
Cole D. Belt is a classical saxophonist whose primary interest lies in chamber music. His passion for collaborative art has resulted in the participation and/or formation of several distinguished chamber ensembles that have been featured across the United States and Europe throughout his career, including the Aeolus Saxophone Quartet, Duo Velocipede, Mana Quartet,
Impression Saxophone Ensemble, and Singularity. He holds Doctorate of Music and Master of
Music degrees from Florida State University and a Bachelor of Music from Northern Arizona
University. His primary mentors have been, Patrick Meighan and Jonathan Bergeron.
57