Saxophone Quartet in World Music Culture of 19th Century: Performance and Composising Creativity

Abstract

The purpose of the proposed article is to determine the peculiarities of the formation of the saxophone quartet in the world musical culture of the 19-th century in the unity of performance and compositional creativity. The research methodology is based on the use of the following methods: textological, source studies, and hermeneutics – when processing musicological and sheet music sources on the chosen topic; systemic-historical, which makes it possible to comprehensively consider the saxophone quartet in the context of the history of the development of world wind art of the 19th century. Special attention was paid to the method of personalisation (scientific biography), which helped to outline the contribution of composers to the formation of the original repertoire for the saxophone quartet of the specified chronological period; analytical – when revealing the immanent features of specific works of the analysed genre. The scientific novelty of the work consists in a comprehensive study of the stage of formation of the saxophone quartet in the world musical culture of the 19th century, outlining the specific genre and style features of the first original compositions for the named ensemble. Conclusions. The saxophone quartet is one of the most popular forms of performance on the named instrument. The prerequisites for its formation were the use of a group of saxophones in wind and military bands. The first saxophone quartet originated in the French musical culture of the 19th century. and by the end of the century it had spread to Europe and America. Usually, saxophone quartets toured together with professional concert groups – P. Gilmore, J.-F. Souza, F. Innes and others. The founders of saxophone ensembles were solo performers themselves, in particular, E. Lefebre. Based on the analytical characteristics of the original works for saxophone quartet by J.-B. Singeli, J. Savarі and С. Florio, their immanent genre-stylistic features are determined, such as the reliance on the structure of the four-part classicist string quartet (Quartet op. 53 by J.-B. Singeli and Quartet for Saxophones by J. Savarі), a combination of different types textures, reliance on romantic harmony and melody of operas by authors of the 19th century.

Key words: saxophone, quartet, performance, composer’s creativity, world musical culture.