Poetry for Baritone Saxophone and Harp (or Piano); Version for Bassoon and Piano

The combination of baritone saxophone and harp started as a challenging endeavor when first thinking about writing for this instrumentation. Commissioned by Wayne Leechford, Poetry for Baritone Saxophone and Harp began as I was reading the poems of Edgar Allan Poe, specifically the marvelous poem, “Annabel Lee”. The cadence of the words seemed to work well as a musical line, and the baritone sound of the saxophone spoke to the darkness and depth of love and despair of the poetry. Combining the textures of the saxophone and harp was a challenge that delighted me as I pondered these two distinct textural sounds that may not have been combined before in duet form. The work begins with the harp evocative of the love and the sea so eloquently described in Poe’s writing. The saxophone is the lover despairing of losing his love, the beautiful Annabel Lee.