Nevermore
This piece was inspired by Nevermore: An Evening With Edgar
Allen Poe, a single act play featuring Jeffrey Combs. My good friend, Dr. Brent
Bristow of Arkansas State University, Beebe, convinced me to go see the play
when it was presented there in March of 2018. That performance by the legendary
Mr. Combs inspired this piece.
Why unaccompanied saxophone? Brent Bristow and I have been
close friends since high school, and since he is the one who convinced me to
see this show, and given that he plays classical saxophone (yes, that IS a
thing!), I figured saxophone would kill two birds with one reed… or something
like that.
The show itself is a one-man performance, so that’s why this
piece is unaccompanied. I toyed with the notion of including some text from the
show. Eventually, I decided to go with The Raven, which is featured prominently
in Combs’ monologue. But I didn’t want to RELY on The Raven, so I wrote the
piece in such a way that it can be performed with OR without the narrator.
I took a bit of inspiration from Bach’s cello music and
brought in some more modern elements such as shifting meters and limited use of
slap-tongue and multiphonics to keep things interesting. No altissimo is used.
This work would make for excellent solo repertoire at the
collegiate level, while still being potentially accessible to advanced high
school players. If the narrator is used, this work would also be great as part
of a Halloween/horror variety show!
You may note that the mp3 demo preview uses a cello sound (placing the transposition in the range of the baritone sax, though again, any saxophone is acceptable). A cello sound is used because samples of saxophone sounds generally leave much to be desired, and they are most commonly based on jazz tone qualities which would be completely inappropriate for this piece.
LISTEN on YouTube
LISTEN on YouTube (with text)
PURCHASE on SheetMusicPlus
