Joe Stollery

This is a sonatina for soprano saxophone with piano which uses the premise of snake charming as a primary stimulus. As the title suggests, the piece sets out a tableau of a draconic serpent (wyrm) being summoned out of a cave by a piper who then subjects it to a series of charms. In this case, the saxophone acts as the piper, and the piano is the wyrm, as can be seen in the opening which begins with the piper alone.

The sonatina is in one continuous movement, divided into three main sections called ‘leks’ (the name refers to the courtship displays made by the capercaillie, a ground-nesting bird common to the Cairngorms). Through each successive lek, the piano becomes increasingly predominant, and this shift is depicted through the way the formal structures are developed – the second lek in particular demonstrates this in the form of a saxophone-led canon in which the piano line skips notes at various points, until it is ultimately the piano that leads by the climax. Interspersed between the leks are short dialogue-like sections in which the saxophone and piano exchange phrases, including a dramatic chordal motif from the piano which musically shouts out the phonics of the name ‘Cadmus’, the mythical founder of the Greek city Thebes who killed another serpent – the name in this context could be interpreted as an insult hurled to the piper!

By the end of the piece, in an ironic twist it is the charmer who, miscalculating the power of the wyrm, ends up being the one defeated. The third lek climaxes with a dramatic ‘bite’ which leaves the piper fatally weakened, and the triumphant wyrm after one last leer gently pulls them into its cave, the piece ending with low menacing rumbles on the piano.

This piece can be paired with my previous sonatina for baritone saxophone, The Donkey Orpheus (2020). It is aimed to have these two pieces form part of a future collection of six pictorial sonatinas on fantastical subjects for each standard member of the saxophone family.