Bornkamp’s Saxophone Treatment of Bach

courtesy of Naxos of America

Last month GENUIN classics released a solo album conceived and performed by saxophonist Arno Bornkamp. The full title of the album was Dance: Bach by Bornkamp; and, as that title suggests, it presents of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. The album is devoted to compositions for solo instrument consisting almost entirely of dance movements.

Each of the instruments is approached with a different saxophone size. Thus, the album begins with the BWV 1008 solo cello suite in D minor played on a baritone saxophone. This is followed by BWV 1013, the A minor partita for solo flute, the only composition of that genre that Bach wrote for a solo wind instrument. Bornkamp plays this piece on a soprano saxophone. The album concludes with a solo alto saxophone account of the BWV 1004 solo violin suite in D minor, complete with the concluding chaconne movement.

Those that attended the Bach Explorations two-concert miniseries, which was offered as part of last summer’s Festival & Academy presented by American Bach Soloists, will not view Bornkamp’s agenda as a new one. The Bach Re-Imagined recital in that miniseries consisted entirely of Bach compositions played on instruments other than those Bach had intended. Indeed, one of those instruments was a baritone saxophone, played by Andrew Barnhart in a performance of the BWV 1009 solo cello suite in C major.

As I observed on that occasion (and many other times), Bach’s music is consistently rich in polyphony, even when it is played by a single instrument. Barnhart was impressively sensitive to that polyphony and how it was often guided by the fact that each cello string has its own characteristic sonorities. Sadly, Bornkamp was not as perceptive as Barnhart had been in such matters; and, beyond any issues of characteristic sonorities, Bornkamp’s treatment of multiple cello stops was limited to awkward arpeggiation, emphasizing the highest note while treating the others as grace notes.

Ultimately Bornkamp was at his best in his performance of BWV 1013. Far be it from me to suggest that Bach would have agreed. However, it would not surprise me if, where performance of BWV 1013 is concerned, Bach could have decided that one type of wind instrument was as good as another. What may be most important is that Bornkamp’s phrasing reflected breath control that would have served a flute player as well as a saxophonist. The BWV 1004 performance, on the other hand, encounters the same difficulties as the cello suite; and the interpretation of the chaconne tends to be annoyingly clunky.

Bornkamp’s project was, of course, an ambitious one; but the path itself has been taken by other instrumentalists whose ambition was made of sterner stuff.