If anyone has a good knowledge of the current grade 8 saxophone pieces I should be gratefull for their recommendations. No it's not for me, as regular readers to this column will know Iam a piano teacher and a beginner on the clarinet.

This is for a piano pupil of mine who is also a saxophone player, and in July I accompanied him for his successful attempt at grade 7. Any one else tried the 'Witch Hunt' piece? Marvellous! Advice regarding the grade 8 repertoire would be welcome. I like the look of Bill Holcombe's 'Blues Concerto' but have had rather indiffernet reactions to it so far.

These are personal favourites...

list A : The Lunde is nice, as is the Grovlez. Not entirely sure the Bach is effective.

list B : I like the Wood (Saxtet do a lot of great publications), the Holcombe you mentioned, and the Francaix. Also quite like the Bennett. The others on the list don't do as much for me, and I don't really know the Trevor Hold.

list C : Both the pieces from Sax Scorchers are really nice, the Ferling is a good 'traditional' choice. Really don't like I Sleep at Waking (sorry Ian Wilson , it's only my personal opinion), not wildly struck on the Bullard.

GROVLEZ!!!


better on oboe though

I bet you think the Ferling's better on oboe too

of course lol

I have just chosen my Grade 8 sax pieces (alto), and didn't know whether they are of any use to you:

A: First Concertino by Georges Guilhard. I love this piece! It's 3 movements that you have to play, and all of them about Andante - Allegretto in tempo. There's several recordings on youtube of it, which may be nice to listen to. This one is my favourite: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yK9CXvvTvHA...feature=related

B: Hot Sonate by Schulhoff. Haven't actually seen the music yet for this, but it sounds great! Again another youtube one is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxFOHYKTtbU...feature=related

C: barry-clari said that they weren't very keen on the Alan Bullard piece - Scherzando Sax. However, I find this the easiest of all of the Grade 8 studies by a mile, and think that it is very attractive too. Bear in mind it does say crotchet = 192 though!

Hope that this is of some help.

Ouch the cost of it!!

Interesting thread particularly when ordering new music

Well, thank you for all that - very interesting and useful! Previously I had received the following suggestions;

List A The Grovlez and the Guilhaud

List B The Bill Holcombe and the Nigel Wood

List C James Rae, Andrew Tweed or Nigel Wood

The Grovlez is obviuosly well liked but I wonder whether, although it is perfectly nice, it is slightly bland? At £15.35 plus postage it is certainly not cheap. (I am ducking for cover as we speak) I shall investigate the Lunde.

It seems barry-clari is on the ball with the Nigel Wood for the B list but, thanks to beanstalkgirl (are you tall by any chance?) I have had a listen to the Schulhoff and love it! Might have to do quite a bit of practise if I am to accompany it though.

As for the study, my pupil is already wading through 'Sax Scorchers' so I suspect he will chose one of them.

Any more?

The site I looked on it was £23.50 so I'd grab it at £15 ish.

The site I looked on it was £23.50 so I'd grab it at £15 ish.

I am not going to buy it at this stage - hopefully I am going to borrow it from the library of The Clarinet and Saxophone Society of Great Britain!

However when the time comes I shall probably buy it from June Emerson Wind Music, Ampleforth, North Yorkshire - just 18 miles away from me. In the catalogue I got from them 3 months ago the Grovlez is listed at £15.35. Postage extra.

June Emerson's outfit is one of the many advantages that comes with living in North Yorkshire. It is second only to God's own county which is, as you all know, Northumberland.

They are very good, you shouldn't have any problem borrowing it from there

Stop giving me ideas lol! I believe RNCM have a good library

They certainly do, especially for wind music. I borrowed more music than I could play while I was there

I can always borrow stuff from the CASS library on emsoboe's behalf, you know...

Hmmm! I might just take you up on that sometime.

Anytime

Why don't you guys, sorry girls, join CASS yourselves and then you would have the use of the library too?

Membership is £25 a year and there is an excellent glossy magazine quarterly. There is also a new online forum but at the moment not many members are using it.

The magazine is excellent, and amongst the articles, it has a calendar of events which is very good. The online forum has been around for at least 18 months though, and it's never taken off sadly...

Yes, I thought it would be good but not enough people use it. I have been a member for a while. I love the magazines.

Perhaps it's something to think about for the future. Confess I don't realy know much about it.

You get a very good quarterly magazine, discounts in certain music shops, access to the online forum, a directory of members, access to the excellent music library and discounts if you visit certain events. CASS occasionally put their own events on, which are uniformly very good.

Thanks Barry! As ever very useful!