Concerto Fantastique pour Saxophone Alto et Orchestre dfHarmonie
 Yasuhide ITO (b.1960)

This work was commissioned in 1983 by the soloist, Nobuya Sugawa - concertmaster of the Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra - and by the band of Hamamatsu Kita High School, Shizuoka Prefecture, the alma mater of both Yasuhide Ito and Nobuya Sugawa.  It was first performed that year by Sugawa and the Hamamatsu Kita High School band, with the composer conducting.  The orchestral version was first performed at the World Saxophone Congress, held in Kawasaki and Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, in 1988.

An opening percussion passage leads into a saxophone cadenza designed to display the soloist?fs technical skill.  As the cadenza soars to a peak the ensemble makes a dynamic entrance.  The contrast between the rhythmic music of the ensemble and the drawn-out notes of the saxophone brings the opening section to a climax.

This is followed by a quieter pi mosso section featuring woodwinds and saxophone, then the saxophone playing against the ensemble.  Next there is another saxophone cadenza backed by muted trumpets and climaxed by an emphatic statement by the percussion.

After a brief return to pi mosso and contrastive sections a rhythmic section backed by the percussion begins, the saxophone sometimes playing with the ensemble, sometimes against it, and sometimes improvising.  The final section incorporates jazz elements.  Following a sustained B-flat chord, the concerto closes with a cadenza accompanied by percussion instruments improvising in the style of traditional Japanese music.

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