Samuel R. Hazo

Arabesque

In Arabesque, a work in three movements, we hear the mystical sounds of Middle Eastern music. The first movement opens with a taqasim, a passage written out in notes but played freely – similar to jazz improvisation. In this case, the alto saxophone plays in bi-tonal harmonic minor scales, in which a note even ‘bends’ to capture the micro-tonality (quarter tones) of the music from this part of the world. However, unlike in jazz, taqasim, which is usually found at the beginning of a piece of music, has very little change to the chordal or bass line accompaniment. The second movement, a dabka, is a traditional Arabic line dance. Its beat, played by a darbuka or doumbek, is very catchy. The final movement, a chorale, is a recapitulation of previous mystical themes from the composition, interwoven with a grandeur of a sparkling ending.