This disc from Britain's Chandos label, bearing prominent logos from the Yamaha corporation and the BBC Philharmonic, exemplifies the brave new world of financing a major orchestral recording. It also demonstrates that the effort is worth the trouble. The disc resembles several issued by the BIS label in Sweden in its renewed focus on traditional solo virtuosity, so long kept in check in contemporary music by a modernism that despised sense pleasures of all kinds. All the music might fall under the neoclassic banner (these ...
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This disc from Britain's Chandos label, bearing prominent logos from the Yamaha corporation and the BBC Philharmonic, exemplifies the brave new world of financing a major orchestral recording. It also demonstrates that the effort is worth the trouble. The disc resembles several issued by the BIS label in Sweden in its renewed focus on traditional solo virtuosity, so long kept in check in contemporary music by a modernism that despised sense pleasures of all kinds. All the music might fall under the neoclassic banner (these are, after all, saxophone concertos), but each work is entirely distinctive. Japanese saxophonist Nobuya Sugawa introduces two contemporary Japanese composers Takashi Yoshimatsu and Toshiyuki Honda, whose music is not widely known in the West. The Honda Concerto du vent (which he translates as Concerto of the wind) is especially noteworthy. Honda sets himself the task, natural enough, of incorporating jazz influences into a classical saxophone piece, and he adds another layer: he...
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