Hans Thomalla
Saxophone Quartet
(2024)
duration: ca. 25'
Live at Constellation Chicago, October 27 2024
Nois Quartet​
​
Program Note
My saxophone quartet explores harmony as a tenuous process. It oscillates between the instruments’ objets trouvés on the one hand – the multiphonics coaxed out of the horns through odd fingerings and gentle embouchure adjustments – and remnants of tonal chord progressions on the other. During its course it becomes increasingly assertive and self-assured before drifting again into a landscape of ambiguity, while at the same time never entirely losing its playfulness. The first movement is in this sense a true Choralvorspiel, a choral prelude, hovering softly between structural exploration and improvisatory play, to which the choral of the second movement seems almost like an afterthought.
The quartet could not have been written without the support of the incredibly skillful and open-minded musicians of ~nois, who in many workshops explored with me the fragile nuances of the work’s harmonic and sonorous journey.
Commissioned by ~nois Saxophone Quartet with support from a grant by the Serge Koussevitzky Music Foundation in the Library of Congress.