Five Miniatures for Saxophone Quartet (Copy) (Copy)
Five Miniatures for Saxophone Quartet
Written for the Quasar Saxophone Quartet
Composer: Louis-Michel Tougas
Performers: Quasar Saxophone Quartet: Marie-Chantal Leclair, Soprano Saxophone; Mathieu Leclair, Alto Saxophone; André Leroux, Tenor Saxophone; Jean-Marc Bouchard, Baritone Saxophone.
Introduction
My Five Miniatures for saxophone quartet are based on two main musical ideas that share loose connections with æsthetic principles found in the practice of the grands rhétoriqueurs—a group of poets from the late Middle Ages, primarily active around the court of Burgundy, known for their formal virtuosity. The first musical idea I employ is the decentralization of rhythmic structures, a technique I have developed which echoes prolation canons. The second idea involves using a limited number of sound objects or motives, which are combined in various ways to create perceptual analogies between complex timbral figures. Multiphonic sounds play a significant role among these sound objects. Rhythmic decentralization and complex timbral figures serve as the foundational axes for my five miniatures, which each explore a unique balance between these two concepts.
Rhythmic Decentralization
Over recent years, I have developed a technique I call rhythmic decentralization, based on polyrhythmic principles. This technique draws inspiration from late medieval and Renaissance prolation canons, where similar musical material is heard at different simultaneous speeds, and from the concept of metric modulation, notably used by American composer Elliott Carter. Unlike Carter's use of metric modulation, in my music, any instrument can modulate to any tempo metrically related to another instrument's tempo at any given moment. Due to the miniatures' brevity, metric modulations are notated as polyrhythms with nested tuplets rather than explicit metric modulations, allowing performers a degree of temporal freedom. Beyond my interest in rhythm itself, this technique facilitates the creation of a pre-compositional polyrhythmic grid upon which sound objects are positioned. This grid serves as a structural framework around which I organize the musical material, with each grid onset potentially spawning a specific sound object.
While my initial intention was to emphasize the perception of distinct pulses and compound rhythmic hockets between instruments, I discovered during early rehearsals with the quartet that the chosen sound objects hindered this goal. In particular, the slow attack of multiphonics made it impractical to expect performers to synchronize different interdependent pulse trains precisely, which is essential for this technique's effectiveness. This “creative misunderstanding” led me to abandon the specific aim, for this piece, of producing complex polyrhythmic structures perceptible as such. Instead, I utilized rhythmic complexity to generate broader polyphonic and poly-timbral textures. Nevertheless, I maintain that the polyrhythmic structures underlying the multiphonics and other sound objects contribute to varying degrees of timbral integration between voices. Notably, the rhythmic treatment in the first miniature creates fluctuations around the subtle perceptual threshold distinguishing fully integrated textures from more conventional polyphonies of independent lines.
Compound Timbral Figures
In his 1993 article Form-Figure-Style: An Intermediate Assessment, composer Brian Ferneyhough gives a definition of a parametric figure:
“A gesture whose component defining features—timbre, pitch contour, dynamic level, and so on—display a tendency towards escaping from that specific context in order to become independently signifying radicals, free to recombine, to “solidify” into further gestural forms may, for want of other nomenclature, be termed a figure.” (p. 37)
Using that definition as a point of departure, I developed an approach specifically focused on the timbral and dynamic characteristics of instrumental gestures. I define timbral figures as collections of short perceptual units that aggregate sequentially and simultaneously to form higher-order Gestalts. These initial units structurally resemble traditional motives but are defined by broader sonic characteristics, including timbre, rather than pitch contour or rhythm.
I began by identifying a small set of sound objects for use in the miniatures. For instance, a primary type of material I utilized is a multiphonic belonging to the “cloud-sounds” category (Figure 1), characterized by a wave-like amplitude profile. Cloud-sound multiphonics possess a strong noise component that enhances the fusion of multiple pitches. They are typically playable only at soft dynamics and feature a slow emission, precluding sharp attacks. Most cloud-sounds lack the pronounced beatings present in other multiphonic sounds, facilitating smooth, integrated textures.
Figure 1: Sound object #1, “cloud-sounds” (sons nuages)
Figure 2.1 and 2.2 present another fundamental object consisting of repeated staccato notes with a slap-tongue technique. Depending on their role in a specific context, various pitches and amplitude profiles are employed to vary this object.
Figure 2.1: Sound object #2, repeated notes with slap tongue
Figure 2.2: Sound object #2 with varied amplitude profile
Additional objects include breathing sounds with flutter-tongue, bisbigliando trills, and smorzato repeated notes on a specific pitch. These objects are compounded sequentially and simultaneously to create more intricate units. Figures 3.1 and 3.2 provide examples of this compounding procedure, found at the outset of the third miniature.
Figure 3.1 displays the first three measures of the third miniature. As the opening gesture, the tenor saxophone initially produces air sound from niente, crescendoing exponentially to a culminating accent. Simultaneously, the soprano saxophone introduces an air sound with trills, flutter-tongue, and an amplitude envelope that reverses that of the tenor, while the baritone saxophone employs the aforementioned slap-tongue gesture. Finally, the alto saxophone contributes a cloud-sound multiphonic acting as the “coda” of the entire figure.
Figure 3.1: Compounding of basic sound objects (III, mm. 1–3)
This configuration of four objects is subsequently deconstructed and reorganized, as depicted in Figure 3.2. Here, the same sound objects are employed, supplemented by softly repeated notes played by the tenor saxophone. The soprano saxophone now initiates the air gesture, while the alto saxophone executes the central slap-tongue repeated notes, augmented by the tenor saxophone's air gesture. The baritone saxophone's multiphonic is augmented by the soprano saxophone's trill. The tenor saxophone's smorzato repeated notes at the figure's conclusion serve as a timbral resonance of the baritone's multiphonic, expanding upon the initial figure in Figure 3.1.
Figure 3.2: Compounding of basic sound objects (III, mm. 4–7)
My main objective with compound figures was to employ timbre as a primary functional parameter. Consequently, sound objects are employed not solely for their local “plastic” interest but also to generate direction, contrast, and timbre-based phrase-like structures. In recent compositions, I have increasingly explored the notion of timbre assuming primary discursive functions—such as opening, prolonging, deviating, and closing, among others. While completely isolating timbre from other sound parameters such as rhythm (or more broadly, time) and amplitude may seem challenging and perhaps unnecessary, this initial intent significantly influenced how I generated and organized sound material into phrase-like units.
This approach to compound timbral figures aims to create formal mirrors at various structural levels. Because first-order objects possess distinct identities, imitation and memory play at this low structural level are possible. Simultaneously, they exhibit sufficient perceptual porosity to facilitate compounding without excessive resistance, allowing for variation and expansion at higher structural levels, such as that of the compound figure.
While the primacy of timbre as a form-bearing parameter and the complexity of rhythmic figures are distinctly modernist traits, this compositional strategy shares a kinship with what Renaissance historian Jonathan Beck terms a “poetics of assemblage.”: “Not only was the panegyric constructivism of the architect and tilesmith both a decorative and a narrative art; so too, conversely, was the poetics of the rhétoriqueur very much a poetics of assemblage. As an artisan of forms, he is concerned less with the phonic qualities and semantic shades of words than with their concrete materiality on the page”.
If I am of course concerned with the “phonic qualities” of my music, in this piece, the interweaving of diverse simple motives is as crucial as the semantic and sonic qualities of the motives themselves.