Young Col
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A cautionary story for teachers and students that has arisen from the general sax syllabus change after next month, March.
For grade 6 alto , as probably for the others, there are changes throughout the set pieces, accompanied in lists A and B and the solo study list C. One of the casualties was Mike Westbrook's jazzy Sonnet which appears in John Harle's album To Baker Street and Bach. Anyone looking to find replacement pieces for the new syllabus might notice, as I did, that List A now has Harle's edition of Rachmaninov's Vocalise (this was in list B before). This also appears in To Baker Street and Bach. It' a lovely piece and on the face of it seemed a good switch to make without having to buy new music.
It's in F# min. and not especially difficult for exam standard, but it does have a number of dynamic and tempo changes. Technically, it has a top F# in a rit. bar at the end, which I could handle, although I was surprised as top F# doesn't feature even at grade 8 in ABRSM and not all alto saxes have a top F# key. However, there is an ossia for that bar written an octave lower.
ABRSM have specimen recordings of each syllabus piece that are downloadable, so I bought that plus some others in their 5 tracks for £2.50 deal. I soon found that Vocalise was being played a whole tone lower, in Emin. I couldn't work out why, nor could my teacher. We asked ASBRSM who said we were looking at the wrong edition and that correct one was a separate "trans. Harle" (whatever trans. meant) where it was in Emin. They were completely unconcerned that there might be confusion with the Harle album that contained it in a different key. So it meant another trip to that nice Mr Myall's shop to buy the different Harle edition which contains just that piece plus accomp. but which of course costs another £5 odd.
Now you could say that both my teacher and I should have looked more carefully at the syllabus, but it's a pretty easy mistake to make when you see two pieces in the same album that seem to both be in the syllabus. The correct Vocalise and the album one are the same piece, Rachmaninov's op34 no14 for alto sax plus piano and both published by Boosey and Hawkes. The correct one in Emin is actually edited by Harle (not "trans.") as opposed to arranged in the To Baker Street and Bach album. Neither give any indication of key for Eb sax on the cover.
If I hadn't downloaded the ABRSM recording we probably wouldn't have realised we'd got a wrong one. I write this up just so that other teachers and students don't make the same mistake. I've now heard of another teacher locally who had done so.
Finally, it's odd that John Harle should have arranged his album version up a tone in F#min in 1985, since the Rachmaninov original score is in concert Emin. At a later date, 2001, Harle then wrote it back down in Emin for Eb flat alto which is the syllabus version.
So, take care!
For grade 6 alto , as probably for the others, there are changes throughout the set pieces, accompanied in lists A and B and the solo study list C. One of the casualties was Mike Westbrook's jazzy Sonnet which appears in John Harle's album To Baker Street and Bach. Anyone looking to find replacement pieces for the new syllabus might notice, as I did, that List A now has Harle's edition of Rachmaninov's Vocalise (this was in list B before). This also appears in To Baker Street and Bach. It' a lovely piece and on the face of it seemed a good switch to make without having to buy new music.
It's in F# min. and not especially difficult for exam standard, but it does have a number of dynamic and tempo changes. Technically, it has a top F# in a rit. bar at the end, which I could handle, although I was surprised as top F# doesn't feature even at grade 8 in ABRSM and not all alto saxes have a top F# key. However, there is an ossia for that bar written an octave lower.
ABRSM have specimen recordings of each syllabus piece that are downloadable, so I bought that plus some others in their 5 tracks for £2.50 deal. I soon found that Vocalise was being played a whole tone lower, in Emin. I couldn't work out why, nor could my teacher. We asked ASBRSM who said we were looking at the wrong edition and that correct one was a separate "trans. Harle" (whatever trans. meant) where it was in Emin. They were completely unconcerned that there might be confusion with the Harle album that contained it in a different key. So it meant another trip to that nice Mr Myall's shop to buy the different Harle edition which contains just that piece plus accomp. but which of course costs another £5 odd.
Now you could say that both my teacher and I should have looked more carefully at the syllabus, but it's a pretty easy mistake to make when you see two pieces in the same album that seem to both be in the syllabus. The correct Vocalise and the album one are the same piece, Rachmaninov's op34 no14 for alto sax plus piano and both published by Boosey and Hawkes. The correct one in Emin is actually edited by Harle (not "trans.") as opposed to arranged in the To Baker Street and Bach album. Neither give any indication of key for Eb sax on the cover.
If I hadn't downloaded the ABRSM recording we probably wouldn't have realised we'd got a wrong one. I write this up just so that other teachers and students don't make the same mistake. I've now heard of another teacher locally who had done so.
Finally, it's odd that John Harle should have arranged his album version up a tone in F#min in 1985, since the Rachmaninov original score is in concert Emin. At a later date, 2001, Harle then wrote it back down in Emin for Eb flat alto which is the syllabus version.
So, take care!