Classical Music | Music for Saxophone

Henri Tomasi

Ballade  Play

Otis Murphy Saxophone
Haruko Murphy Piano

Recorded on 06/16/2004, uploaded on 05/07/2009

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Ballade

Tomasi wrote this Ballade for the legendary French saxophonist, Marcel Mule.  Mule describes the Ballade in the following manner:

You have to put yourself into the character of the piece because the music expresses the sadness of the life of a clown...  (Tomasi) had written notations on the music where one must imagine the clown on the banks of the Seine, gesturing to amuse the public...  A clown walks along the Seine at night and thinks about everything in his life that is not amusing.  It is a little drama.  It takes the form of a blues, which was invented by African-American musicians, and it is sad music.  He used that so that the clown's feelings of sadness grow and grow, and at the end, it explodes.  At the end, the clown cries as he walks along the Seine...  Finally, the clown resigns himself to continue to make the public laugh.

O. Murphy