Exam: AMEB

Performed by Rompduo

This piece, a flight of fancy for alto saxophone and piano, comprises three sections, each lasting about a minute or so. The first section kicks off in an energetic and cheerful way with the bright, upper registers of both instruments at play. Also evident in the opening section are ideas such as angular melodic lines played in unison, a little harp-like piano accompaniment texture and a contrasting theme fashioned atop a jazzy, dance-inspired bassline. The middle section of the work is perhaps the more unearthly music of the work. Little updrafts and whirlwinds of tinkling, glockenspiel-like piano figurations add a haunting quality to a chromatically inflected oboe melody, evoking, for me, images of night and a kind of magic. The final section of the piece – which brings us back to earth with its recapitulation of earlier material – is characterised by the sound of its ‘slow-to-start’, hand-cranked engine.