This programme is threaded together using the evocative poetry of Alfred de Musset (1810-1857), whose text, La nuit de mai, inspired these artists as they compiled and interpreted these works. La nuit de mai is the story of a musical journey that takes place on a languid spring night, from which loneliness, nostalgia, pain, and the reminiscences of a lost love emerge. The choice of this repertoire stems from a desire to reflect that poetic starting-point, but also from Llorente’s interest in exploring the musical and technical limits of the saxophone. This is a programme that embraces German Romanticism, English folklore, French Impressionism and hints of the music of the great Russian composers.
A phrase from La nuit de mai was included in the published score of Rebecca Clarke’s Sonata for viola and piano, in which she explores an array of moods and passions, her material lending itself remarkably well to the sound of the saxophone for this recording. Throughout Fauré’s First Violin Sonata, also heard in an
