Oriental is Spanish Dance No. 2 by Enrique Granados, originally for piano. The Saxapil Quartet from Altea (Alicante) commissioned me years ago to arrange it for saxophone quartet, and here I share this beauty, which is part of various ensembles’ repertoire. This journey to Granados’ floating worlds is the second ArteSonía gift.
The original piano work is a delight, especially when performed by the great Rosa Torres-Pardo:
We’ll catch Rosa Torres-Pardo for the Palanca section, as she’s a very inspiring musician who has opened paths for all of us dedicated to music.
The Saxapil Quartet from Altea, responsible for today’s ArteSonía, was formed by Ignacio Solana (soprano), Alejandro Juarez (alto), Antoni J.Barber (tenor), and Felipe Zaragozí (baritone), all professors at local conservatories and teaching colleagues at the MUSA summer courses in Altea, directed by Felipe Zaragozí himself (the quartet’s baritone) where I taught composition and improvisation during the summers of 2014 and 2015. I liked Altea so much that I later lived there for a year, what a beautiful place…
The arrangement of Oriental for saxophone quartet is from 2007 and plays with oriental scales, giving a slight twist to the original author’s approach to them. The soprano sax sometimes plays the role of snake charmer, or hypnotic melody, while the others also carry sinuous melodies that create a great sensation of weightlessness. Download the scores from these links:
Below you can listen to my arrangement performed by different ensembles:
Performance by Synthèse Quartet from Salamanca (2018):
Performance by Sax Ensemble from Madrid (2017):
Performance by Ilusax quartet from Madrid (2016):
Let me know if you perform it with your quartets! I’ll be delighted to hear you.
