Uwe Kremp

Zwiegespräche

These Ten Duos for Two Saxophones were composed in the spring and summer of 2026 and can, in principle, be performed in any combination or order. However, a cyclical performance of all ten pieces reveals a dramaturgically meaningful connection between the individual movements.

These duets are generally intended for soprano and tenor saxophones (the score is therefore notated in B-flat), but other instrumentations—such as alto and baritone saxophones—would also be possible. (In this case, all pieces would sound a fifth lower.)

For a long time now, Uwe Kremp has been fascinated by narrative styles in literature, film, and theater that do not develop a story in a systematic, causally logical form, but rather in a rhapsodic, associative manner that is more psychological than truly logical. Successful examples of this include Jim Jarmusch’s films *Night on Earth* (1991) and *Coffee and Cigarettes* (2003), whose episodic structure has deeply inspired him. Kremp’s composition *Dialogue for Two Saxophones*, which consists of ten more or less independent individual movements, therefore follows similar formal principles, even though here, of course, a completely different story is told using purely musical means, without it being possible to translate it unambiguously into words.

Another similarity between the aforementioned films by Jim Jarmusch and Kremp’s composition is their focus on exactly two characters in each film scene (even though *Coffee and Cigarettes* occasionally features a few sidekicks), which formally corresponds to Kremp’s restriction to just two melodic instruments for each individual movement. The fact that two different actors take center stage in each episode of these films, while the two musicians in Kremp’s piece remain the same throughout, is, of course, primarily for practical reasons. What is comparable, however, is that the two saxophonists also play entirely different roles in each of the ten movements.

Composing music for two performers has always been a special challenge for Uwe Kremp personally. In his view, the main difficulty lies in achieving as lively a fluctuation in the density of musical events as possible—one that works well dramaturgically—without the music ever feeling too sparse, which can of course happen very easily with just two players. Uwe Kremp hopes that he has succeeded in finding a convincing solution with these ten duos.