The saxophone can do more than many people believe and know! Today it can be found in jazz and pop, but it was actually invented in the middle of the 19th century as a classical concert instrument: The Frenchman Adolphe Sax wanted to create a bridge between the supple sound of the clarinet and the piercing, nasal sound of the oboe. The Signum Saxophone Quartet features the four most common sizes, from soprano to baritone saxophone. Each instrument is unique, and four of them form a quartet that sometimes sounds like an entire orchestra. In its program for young audiences, whose works the ensemble has arranged for itself, the Signum Saxophone Quartet shows what it takes for instruments and musicians to come together.

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Rococo Theater

That's unfortunate: If you blow into a saxophone, it immediately sounds like jazz. In 1840, Adolphe Sax actually only wanted to use his glittering reed instrument in the orchestra to close the tonal gap between the oboe and the clarinet. Today, many saxophonists are working hard on their return to classical music - in the case of the Signum Saxophone Quartet, primarily with the help of their own arrangements. Since the four saxophonists repeatedly emphasize how much they have learned from the strings of the Artemis Quartet, we can look forward to their blown version of Dvořák's American string quartet. Erwin Schulhoff, who felt close to Dada, Communism and jazz, was very fond of the saxophone, and so the arrangement of his string pieces op. 14 is just as fitting as the tonal re-dedication of Ástor Piazzolla's Suite del Ángel . After all, Piazzolla is about angels dancing tango. And about an angel who dies (in the final movement, La Muerte del Ángel) – after a fugue, of all things…

Signum Saxophone Quartet

That's unfortunate: If you blow into a saxophone, it immediately sounds like jazz. But in 1840 Adolphe Sax actually only wanted to close the tonal gap between the oboe and the clarinet in the orchestra with his glittering reed instrument. Today, many saxophonists are working hard on their return to classical music - in the case of the Signum Saxophone Quartet, primarily with the help of their own arrangements. Since the four saxophonists repeatedly emphasize how much they have learned from the strings of the Artemis Quartet, we can look forward to their blown version of Dvořák's American string quartet. Erwin Schulhoff, who felt close to Dada, Communism and jazz, was very fond of the saxophone, and so the arrangement of his string pieces op. 14 is just as fitting as the tonal re-dedication of Ástor Piazzolla's Suite del Ángel . After all, Piazzolla is about angels dancing tango. And about an angel who dies (in the final movement, La Muerte del Ángel) – after a fugue, of all things…

Four saxophones fill rooms. Their sound is rich, loud, and colorful. As a mini big band, they can replace an orchestra, and that's exactly what they do here. You can hear cello concertos and orchestral works arranged for cello, piano, and saxophone quartet. Schwetzingen artist in residence Raphaela Gromes takes on the string part, arranger Julian Riem sits at the grand piano, and the four spirited wind players of the Signum Saxophone Quartet, founded in 2016, ensure that the music not only sounds beautiful, but also explodes at times. For example, when the forest witch Baba Yaga swings herself on her broom in Anatoly Lyadov's tone poem. During the long clarinet glissando at the beginning of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue . In Bernstein's groovy Mambo . Or during the musical shared apartment of rock, jazz, Vivaldi, and Schubert in Friedrich Gulda's Cello Concerto. As one of the Signum musicians once said: “You have to give the audience your whole heart, your whole soul.” Trigger warning: You might leave the concert hall dancing.

Aram Poghosyan

Events

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May 27, 2025

sheet metal laboratory · SWR Symphonieorchester

May 27, 2025

Signum Saxophone Quartet · SWR Symphonieorchester

May 27, 2025

Signum Saxophone Quartet · SWR Symphonieorchester

May 28, 2025

Raphaela Gromes · Julian Riem · Signum Saxophone Quartet · SWR Symphonieorchester

May 28, 2025

Raphaela Gromes · Julian Riem · Signum Saxophone Quartet · SWR Symphonieorchester

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