FOR NOW & FOREVER

It was towards the end of the 1990s that I became fascinated by the sound of the bass saxophone; low instruments clearly form part of my DNA, as my brother is a bass guitarist and my father played bass harmonica in a harmonica trio when he was younger. I started looking for pieces to play to get to know the instrument better, but discovered that there was hardly any original repertoire for it, despite the fact that the bass saxophone was the first instrument of the family that Adolphe Sax invented. 

This marked the beginning of a wonderfully vivid quest: some 130 works for bass saxophone came to be composed and performed in close collaboration with the composers, with 45 of them being written for bass saxophone and English horn; this latter instrument was played by Susanne van Zoelen - Lucker, with whom I formed the Spectrum Duo. When I later became the tenor saxophonist of the Raschèr Saxophone Quartet in 2014, I decided to approach a few composers whose works had particularly impressed me and to ask them if they would compose something for tenor saxophone; the repertoire for tenor saxophone, like the bass, never seems to contain enough good pieces. 

I researched the original sound of Sax’s instruments as part of my doctoral studies in Brussels and also worked towards an identification of the Raschèr saxophone tradition, as it is very much linked to Sax’s original ideas. This recording is a representation of my thesis in sound. I chose the title For Now and Forever for this CD not only because Bernard van Beurden’s work is important to me, but also because it describes the intention behind the recording in an almost philosophical way. The original sound of a first-generation Adolphe Sax saxophone (1861) with an original mouthpiece is recorded here for the first time. We have included not only works that were published by Sax himself, including the very first work specifically for tenor and piano, but also the most recently composed works for tenor saxophone. We trust that this connection between the very beginning and the present, the now, gives a clear direction for the future: forever...