The English saxophonist Huw Wiggin ignores some famous saxophone works in the program of Reflections, his debut recorded recital, but that's not an accident. His aim is to explore what the soprano saxophone can bring to music written mostly before the era when the instrument began to bring with it an inevitable association with jazz. He plays a few works originally for the saxophone, including the rare and delightfully Françaix-like Tableaux de Provence from the composer Paule Maurice, and a few arranged by his accompanist, pianist John Lenehan. But most of the arrangements are his own, and they do fulfill the aim of making you hear familiar music in a new way. Sample the opening Oboe Concerto in D minor of Alessandro Marcello, for which the ears have already been softened up by Bach's better-known version for solo keyboard (the Concerto in D minor, BWV 974). Wiggin rigorously avoids contemporary accents in this work, and the slow movement, especially, has a delightful exotic quality, never overemphasized but always there. The two Schubert songs see Wiggin departing from the original text a bit, and these both have a pleasant café-musician quality. Things go a bit farther afield in the second half of the program; the Siete Canciones Populares of Falla gain little other than blank pastiche from being played on the saxophone, and the inclusion of Piazzolla, a contemporary figure who was indeed influenced by jazz, blurs the focus. But the final works, an energetic Flight of the Bumblebee and the saxophone original Sing, Bird (a movement of a piece called the Fuzzy Bird Sonata by Japan's Takashi Yoshimatsu, are engaging throughout. Wiggin certainly breaks new ground for the saxophone here, and the album is of interest beyond circles associated with the instrument.
© TiVo