The saxophone in dialogue

At the beginning of the 20th century, the saxophone was still a relatively young instrument – and precisely for that reason, particularly open to new musical ideas. This programme explores the many different ways in which composers approached its sound world, moving between chamber music, jazz and modern musical language.

In Paul Hindemith’s Trio op. 47 (1928), the tenor saxophone becomes an equal partner to the viola and piano. Two years later, Erwin Schulhoff’s Hot-Sonate combines the classical four-movement sonata form with the energy and rhythmic drive of jazz. Shaped by Dada and the social upheavals that followed the First World War, Schulhoff saw jazz not as a mere stylistic effect, but as the expression of a new era.

Claude Lenners’ Dialog V brings this idea of exchange into the present day, with saxophone and percussion engaging in a direct interplay of impulse, colour and resonance.

The programme concludes with Darius Milhaud’s La Création du monde (1923). Inspired by his encounters with jazz in Harlem, Milhaud blends blues, syncopation and jazz-inflected colours with European compositional techniques. Here, the saxophone becomes a bridge between different musical worlds – and it is precisely this spirit of openness that shapes the programme as a whole.