Quartet for Saxophones (11')

Joelle Wallach’s two movement Quartet for Saxophones is a study in the parallel roles saxophones have played in the jazz and classical traditions.  The first movement can be heard as a formal passacaglia or a murky blues.  The contrasting second movement is a fugue with a jagged, jazzy subject.  The piece was written in 1980 in New York City and revised there as well, seventeen years later, in 1997