Saxophone: "Gradus" by Philip Glass

Philip Glass is a renowned American composer of the second half of the twentieth century through to the present. He wrote Gradus in 1968, upon returning to New York after studying with Nadia Boulanger and Ravi Shankar. A “gradus” is an instrumental exercise book of increasing difficulty; it means “steps.” Glass's composition, dedicated to his frequent saxophonist-collaborator Jon Gibson, is an early example of what would become his trademark minimalist style. Minimalism sets a number of variables as constants in order to highlight changes within a smaller set of variables. In Gradus many elements that usually change throughout a piece of music are kept static through the whole piece. The first movement comprises 65 lines, with each line subdivided into 32 beats (each beat being an eighth note or eighth rest). All of the notes played by the saxophonist are eighth notes, and all rests are eighth rests. The tempo is quarter note = 132, and it remains constant from the beginning to the end. The beginning of the piece is marked with the dynamic mezzo-forte, and that does not change as the piece progresses. All of these elements are kept the same throughout the piece in order to draw attention to the main thing that changes: the set of pitches available for the melody. The piece begins with an ascending melody of five pitches:

Those five pitches are manipulated into different patterns, and gradually new pitches are introduced into the mix, one at a time. Because this is the only significant change, each new pitch sticks out much more obviously than in a piece in which all the variables are constantly changing. Though the pitches are put through many different arrangements, there is always a pull toward the ascending melody from the beginning, and by the end of the piece the ascending melody contains nine pitches:

I've played Gradus as part of my warm-up routine for the last few years, and last week I decided to go to the studio and try recording a version of it. Here it is:

Glass's work is much more varied than this composition might indicate. For more of his saxophone works, I recommend his Saxophone Quartet Concerto, in the recording by the amazing Sonic.Art Saxophone Quartet. He has also written a number of film scores in recent years, including for Martin Scorcese's Kundun. And for something really different, try the opera he wrote in sync with Jean Cocteau's film Beauty and the Beast, available as an alternate audio track on the Criterion Collection release of the film.