Bozza, Eugene - Aria - for Saxophone & Piano

A custom streaming practice/rehearsal piano track for the Aria for Saxophone & Piano,
by Eugene Bozza.

Bozza penned this Aria in 1936 during his time at the Villa Medici in Rome after winning the prestigious Grand Prix de Rome. Originally dedicated to the legendary French saxophonist Marcel Mule, the piece actually borrows its melodic framework directly from the third movement of J.S. Bach's Pastorale in F Major for organ! Bozza blended classic baroque structural sensibilities with lush twentieth century French romanticism, resulting in one of the most widely performed and genuinely beloved lyrical works in the entire classical saxophone canon.

🎹 Thoughts From the Bench:  I indicate SOME of the possibilities for rubato and shaping in this piece, but we/you have to communicate clearly on exactly where we are stretching and where we are snapping back to tempo, so in your rehearsal with your own pianist be sure to drive the bus, so to speak. It's funny to me that Bozza wrote all these strange and quirky pieces, but this work for saxophone (an instrument we associate with strange and quirky pieces) instead is the most lovely aria.

One thought that I communicate with people as we rehearse is that in a lot of music (especially once you get into the romantic era and later), sudden dynamic changes do not happen in a vaccuum. If we're going from forte to piano dynamic, the piano (instrument) will need a microsecond to allow the louder transients to stop ringing, or the space that you're play in will need a hint of time to let some of the sound clear out. So the couple of super dramatic subito p's and subito pp's in this piece will have just a hint of extra time.