THE TEACHING OF SAXOPHONE OVER TIME: From Adolphe Sax to the present day

By Luca Mozzillo

Thesis discussed in the academic year 2021/2022 at the "Domenico Cimarosa" State Conservatory of Music in Avellino on the occasion of the awarding of the I Level Academic Diploma in Saxophone

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Mar 30, 2023
• ISBN: 9781447776888

Book preview

Ministero dell’Università e della Ricerca

Conservatorio Statale di Musica "Domenico Cimarosa - Avellino

Diploma Accademico di Primo Livello in Saxofono

THE TEACHING OF SAXOPHONE OVER TIME

From Adolphe Sax to the present day

Relatore                                                                                      Candidato

M° Giovanna Pazienza                                                                Luca Mozzillo

matr. 10255

Anno Accademico 2020/2021

Title | THE TEACHING OF SAXOPHONE OVER TIME

Author | Luca Mozzillo

ISBN | 978-1-4477-7688-8

© All right reserved

… with the saxophone, it is the most beautiful sound paste I know"

from the Treatise on instrumentation by Gioacchino Rossini

Introduction

Each of us knows the saxophone, this wonderful wind instrument that spans many musical genres. Definitely famous in jazz and pop music, few also remember the numerous classical pages and that above all, as Mario Marzi (one of the greatest exponents of this instrument) indicated to us, "its potential is not yet fully known. Precisely because of its complexity and its charm that has affected different cultures despite its young existence, it follows that different schools of thought have developed (and still exist) over the years. We will therefore have the opportunity to know the major" ones, their origins and subsequent developments.

At first the saxophone didn't have an easy life. Its inventor Adolphe Sax, after introducing it to the public, began to teach it himself at the encouragement of Gioacchino Rossini. So at first he began to teach it privately (among the pupils of this period we remember the famous Hyacinthe Klosè, in the photo).

Then, since in that period the saxophone was used exclusively in the band environment, the Military Musical Gymnasium of Paris entrusted Jean-Francois Cokken with the teaching of the saxophone¹.

Later Sax was given the chair at the Paris Conservatoire. He therefore also trained the first soloists, albeit still predominantly in the environment of military bands but also in important front pages such as Bizet's L'Arlesienne and Massenet's Werther. On the didactic front, among his pupils we remember Louis-Adolphe Mayeur who published the Grand Méthode complète de saxophone, Nazaire Beeckman who was a saxophone teacher at the Brussels Conservatory and Gustave Poncelet who always taught in Brussels. The saxophone in Europe, although it spread throughout the world through various tours of saxophonists performing original compositions and transcriptions for various formations such as in orchestral groups, in sax quartet and in duo with piano, recording records and establishing various training schools, after Sax's death brought about a steep decline in interest in it. He will have the opportunity to be reborn in the United States of America…