Music To Celebrate the Resurrection of Christ, for orchestra
I Will Awake the Dawn
Concerto for violin
In the Beginning, for orchestra
Caritas, opera
The sacred and profane blur in the spiritually conflicted works of Robert Saxton, whose recurrent themes are doubt, faith, and the private journey of the soul in a hostile society. Saxton's modes of expression range from angst-laden atonality -- exploited with great complexity for the bulk of a piece -- to the growing appearance of triadic harmonies and joyous tonal paeans in the concluding measures. This simple scheme is effective in the orchestral Music to Celebrate the Resurrection, I Will Awake the Dawn for double a ...
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The sacred and profane blur in the spiritually conflicted works of Robert Saxton, whose recurrent themes are doubt, faith, and the private journey of the soul in a hostile society. Saxton's modes of expression range from angst-laden atonality -- exploited with great complexity for the bulk of a piece -- to the growing appearance of triadic harmonies and joyous tonal paeans in the concluding measures. This simple scheme is effective in the orchestral Music to Celebrate the Resurrection, I Will Awake the Dawn for double a cappella choirs, and In the Beginning for orchestra, all corresponding to Saxton's ideas of redemption. The Violin Concerto is more ambiguous, yet the violin part clearly represents an aspiring spirit, struggling against the violence and chaos of the orchestra. The BBC Symphony Orchestra, under Matthias Bamert, provides an ominous accompaniment to Tasmin Little's searching solo, and this performance is the most satisfying for its intensity and clarity. In his two-act opera Caritas,...
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