Sweden's BIS label has focused a series of releases on creating a modest revival of the virtuoso ideal, focusing especially on music of the early twentieth century. Several have been successful, both in purely technical terms and in making a convincing case for abandoned repertoire, but none has offered as much sheer fun as this album of saxophone-and-orchestra music -- which also scores on each of the first two counts. The album's title denotes its contents, which are not just French but emanate from or refer to the country's southern, Mediterranean regions. The mood, bright and joyous, is inflected slightly differently in a series of works ranging from moderately familiar (
Milhaud's Scaramouche, more often played on clarinet, and a saxophone version of the Pavane pour une infante défunte) to the almost forgotten but festive Tableaux de Provence of female composer Paule Maurice. All the music testifies to the level of craft composers of the period attained; it lies superbly on the saxophone, which sounds at different times like most of the other members of the wind family. All the works except for the
Ravel consist of several short movements, colorful and sharp, with plenty to keep French saxophonist
Claude DeLangle occupied. He's an attractive player who is on top of the music's technical challenges, but the real star is the
Singapore Symphony Orchestra under
Lan Shui. The ensemble adopts a light, sharp, festive tone that's perfect for the music and forms a nice foil for the varied sonic palette realized by
DeLangle. The sound is an ideal complement to the sounds produced by the players: it is live, detailed, and brilliant to a point that would be called harsh if it did not fit this music so well. A joy to hear and to share, Under the Sign of the Sun may be the perfect classical album for summer listening.