Saxophone Concerto

“The Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Orchestra is a revised version of my Viola Concerto from 1986. The entire work aims towards the last movement, which consists of variations on the theme of Schubert’s Impromptu in A flat major. The last two movements are played without a break, and Schubert’s theme appears like a vision in the celesta, against the background of a gentle twelve-note chord. In this movement there are no variations in the traditional sense of the world; it is rather a case of music ‘around Schubert’. At times Schubert’s theme disappears completely in the musical texture (the melodic germ-cells and the rhythm remain), only to appear once again.
For me, Schubert’s music was always a symbol of music in general and of that which is eternal in art. I first quoted from ‘Die schöne Müllerin’ in my Concerto for Violin and Orchestra (1977), and in 1995 I completed Schubert’s Opera ‘Lazarus’. The concerto is demanding for the soloist, but the virtuosity never comes to the surface (except in the third movement). It is more a question of an inner monologue, as with Schubert.” (Edison Denisov)