Augusta Read Thomas: Shakespeare's Jesters (2023) [for Satb Saxophone Quartet]

Description

Augusta Read Thomas is one of the most active composers in the world, with commissions, performances, recordings, awards, and honours, but she is also a long-standing, exemplary citizen of the Profession at large with an extensive and deeply committed history as a generous colleague in the profession. She is without question one of the best and most important composers of our time. Her music has substance, depth, and a sense of purpose. She has a lot to say and knows how to say it, and in a way that is intelligent yet appealing and sophisticated. Across Shakespeare's Jesters' 9-minute duration, the composition unfolds a labyrinth of musical interrelationships and connections that showcase the musicians in a virtuosic display of rhythmic agility, counterpoint, skill, energy, dynamic range, timbre, clarity, and majesty. Throughout the kaleidoscopic journey, the work passes through many lively and colourful episodes, never losing its sense of dance, caprice, and effervescence. Shakespeare's Jesters' falls loosely into three arcs played without a pause. The opening three minutes is an exposition of animated materials with rhythmic vitality featuring contrapuntal hockets that ping-pong between players. Following are three contrapuntal phrases (lasting respectively 60, 120, and 90 seconds) throughout which the musical ingredients are further transformed and elaborated. The final 120 seconds, a mischievous caper. - Augusta Read Thomas