Music for Saxophone and Orchestra

The saxophone was developed in Paris in the 1840s by Adolphe Sax, a member of the instrument-manufacturing Sax family established in Brussels. It was natural that the new instrument would have a particular appeal to French composers and it found an early place in French military bands, gradually making an appearance in French opera for special purposes of orchestral colouring. In America the saxophone proved of use to Sousa in the l890s, before becoming an essential element in jazz and in swing bands.

An astonishingly prolific composer, Darius Milhaud was born in 1892 in Aix-en-Provence into a prosperous Jewish family. Trained at the Paris Conservatoire as a pupil of Leroux, Gédalge, Dukas and Widor, he enjoyed close friendship with a number of painters and writers. Among the latter Paul Claudel assumed some importance in his life, particularly when Milhaud was able in 1916 to accompany him to Brazil, employed nominal