''Your Rockaby'' is a concerto for soprano saxophone and orchestra written by British composer

Mark-Anthony Turnage Mark-Anthony Turnage CBE (born 10 June 1960) is a British composer of classical music. Biography Turnage was born in Corringham, Essex. He began composing at age nine and at fourteen began studying at the junior section of the Royal College of ...

. It was completed in 1993.

Background

''Your Rockaby'' was born after Turnage had spent some time in

Tanglewood Tanglewood is a music venue in the towns of Lenox and Stockbridge in the Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts. It has been the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra since 1937. Tanglewood is also home to three music schools: the ...

and as a composer-in-association at the

CBSO The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO) is a British orchestra based in Birmingham, England. It is the resident orchestra at Symphony Hall: a B:Music Venue in Birmingham, which has been its principal performance venue since 1991. Its a ...

. Even though he explored composing for the saxophone in his first opera, ''

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

'', this was the first time Turnage wrote a concertante piece for saxophone. The concerto loosely bases its rhythmic structure on Samuel Beckett's play ''

Rockaby ''Rockaby'' is a short one-woman play by Samuel Beckett. It was written in English in 1980, at the request of Daniel Labeille, who produced it on behalf of ''Programs in the Arts'', State University of New York, for a festival and symposium in ...

''. However, the link between these two works is only readily apparent thanks to their title. Since the piece is not scored for any voices, it includes no text from the play. The concerto was a

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...

Structure

It is scored for a solo soprano saxophone in B-flat with amplification, three flutes, two alto flutes, a piccolo, three oboes, two clarinets in B-flat, a bass clarinet, a contrabass clarinet in B-flat, two bassoons, a contrabassoon, four horns in F, three trumpets in C, two tenor trombones, a bass trombone, a tuba, a large percussion section for five percussionists (consisting of a brake drum, a large bass drum, a pedal bass drum, two bodhráns, a sizzle cymbal, a woodblock, a large whip, a large untuned gong, a xylophone, a marimba, a vibraphone, crotales, hand bells, tubular bells, tuned cow bells, a djembe, two

darabuka The goblet drum (also chalice drum, tarabuka, tarabaki, darbuka, darabuka, derbake, debuka, doumbek, dumbec, dumbeg, dumbelek, toumperleki, tumbak, or zerbaghali; arz, دربوكة / Romanized: ) is a single-head membranophone with a goblet- ...

s (or two large bongos), and a large saucepan), a cimbalom, a large ratchet, a harp, a piano, a celesta, and a large string section (consisting of sixteen first violins, sixteen second violins, twelve violas, twelve cellos, and eight double basses). The general tone of the composition is bluesy and dark, which is specified in the tempo markings used in the score and reinforced by the unusual percussion scoring of the piece, calling for

bodhrán The bodhrán (, ; plural ''bodhráin'' or ''bodhráns'') is a frame drum used in Irish music ranging from in diameter, with most drums measuring . The sides of the drum are deep. A goatskin head is tacked to one side (synthetic heads or oth ...

s (Irish traditional drums), darabukas (drums from the Middle East and North Africa) and the djembe (from West Africa). This was also noted by Andrew Clements's original review in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' which had the headline ''Lullaby in Black''.

Recordings

Despite its initial success, this piece has been performed very rarely. The only recording widely available is the authoritative version from the musicians who premiered the piece. It was recorded on November 25, 1995, at

Abbey Road Studio Abbey Road Studios (formerly EMI Recording Studios) is a recording studio at 3 Abbey Road, St John's Wood, City of Westminster, London, England. It was established in November 1931 by the Gramophone Company, a predecessor of British music c ...

No. 1. It was released on CD by both Argo and

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Reception

The album was shortlisted for the 1997

Mercury Music Prize The Mercury Prize, formerly called the Mercury Music Prize, is an annual music prize awarded for the best album released in the United Kingdom by a British or Irish act. It was created by Jon Webster and Robert Chandler in association with the B ...

, a prestigious award recognising the best British or Irish album of the year.

References

{{Authority control Saxophone concertos 1993 compositions Compositions by Mark-Anthony Turnage