Elements for Saxophone Quartet and Orchestra

Elements and is designed to musically portray the essential nature of the Classical Greek elements, fire, water, air and earth and their astrological implications. The first movement is Fire whose essential nature is strong and controlling. The music contains a lot of forceful sections, primarily in a homophonic style. The water elements chief characteristic is sensitivity, therefore it is in a slow tempo and is lyrical and harmonically rich. The chief characteristic of the air element it is changeable, therefore this movement is filled with contrasts of texture, dynamics, articulation, meter, tonality, and orchestration. This last movement represents the Earth element whose main characteristic is stability. To represent stability musically, a lot of ostinatos were used. This work was commissioned by the h2 quartet in order to perform with a high school orchestra. Several substitute parts are provided. The score prints on legal size paper and the parts on letter.