Canfield: Elevator Music for Alto Saxophone and Piano

Code: JP4115
ISMN: 979-0-3019-0652-1

Elevator Music for Alto Saxophone and Piano by David DeBoor Canfield.

Elevator Music for solo alto saxophone and band was composed in December and January, 2012/2013. The piano reduction was not done until 2021. The music was written for and dedicated to Indiana Professor of Saxophone, Dr. Otis Murphy. The title is a pun on the given name of the dedicatee, who shares the name of the world’s most famous elevator company. The work is consequently full of motoristic writing and driving rhythms. Another joke, perhaps, is that this work is intended to be as far removed as possible from the insipid music typically encountered in elevators.

The work is cast in several contrasting sections, or “floors” that any elevator traverses. Given that one of them is a cadenza, the work can almost be thought of as a single-movement concerto. In the middle of the work, the listener will also hear the actual recorded sounds of a freight elevator, over which the soloist is called to extemporize. Beyond elevators, Canfield’s intention was simply to depict the mechanized and motorized age in which he and Dr. Murphy live, and the busy lives that both are involved in.

Duration is approximately 13 minutes. The technical demands require very accomplished players, both in the accompaniment and the solo part.

If possible, m. 136 should be played over the sounds of a freight elevator. A Zip file containing a MP3 recording of these sounds may be downloaded at no charge by clicking MP3 Elevator Sounds

Elevator Music for alto saxophone and band is available separately (JP6028).

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