French saxophonist Claude Delangle brings sexy back to the Esplanade, performing with the SSO in a sure-to-be unforgettable evening, writes Derek Lim

If he were single and available, Claude Delangle just might merit entry into a roll-call of Paris’ most eligible fiftysomethings. Talented and charming? Check. Good-looking in a slightly roguish way? Check. Passionate and at the height of his profession? Double check. Too bad then that the Frenchman, considered one of the greatest contemporary saxophonists, is very much taken – happily married to a classical pianist, with four grown children and a string of awards to his name. 

It’d be surprising if it were otherwise. After all, Delangle sits on the most prestigious chair of his profession – professor for saxophone at the Paris Conservatoire, the most highly regarded position for the instrument in the world. The position first belonged to the Brussels-born Adolphe Sax, who invented the instrument in the 1840s. We chatted with Delangle, who’s on his second trip here to play yet another radical concert with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra and music director Lan Shui, over the phone on a cool Parisian afternoon at the Conservatoire. 

In 2004, Delangle stunned Singapore with performances of Jacques Ibert’s ‘Concertino da Camera’, Florent Schmitt’s ‘Légende’ and Darius Milhaud’s ‘Scaramouche’ with his sleek and polished, yet pliable and dark tone. This time around, he reprises Ibert’s musical acrobatics, but spices up the program with John Williams’ jazzy-cool ‘Escapades’ from the film score of Steven Spielberg’s Catch Me If You Can, and romances the audience with Astor Piazzolla’s luscious, ethereal and deeply emotional Argentinian sound in ‘Milonga del Angel’ and ‘Muerte del Angel’. 

But wait: what’s the saxophone doing on the same stage as a symphony orchestra? After all, most associate it with jazz or big-band music, styles as far away from the Austro-Germanic tradition as can be. The first thing Delangle does is to disabuse the notion that the saxophone is unpopular as a classical instrument. ‘Of course, it still isn’t mainstream [classical], but I think you’ll find that especially in Japan and France, there are a lot of musicians taking up the saxophone as a classical music instrument,’ he says. 

Much of this has to do with the saxophone’s growing classical repertoire, Delangle continues, but this wasn’t always the case. In its earliest conception, it was intended to bridge the very different timbres of the clarinet and the brass instruments in the marches and fanfares of the military band. To this end, the sax sound was an overwhelming success, gaining rapid acceptance. Later, it came into its own as a solo instrument, and became extremely popular in jazz as well as big-band music. 

Part of the sax’s early success has to do with a quick learning curve. ‘It’s quite an easy instrument to play,’ says Delangle, though struggling saxophone enthusiasts will probably disagree. ‘The fingerings are very easy, so it’s not difficult to play very fast passages. It’s much easier than other wind instruments. If you want to express yourself with the flute, or tuba or trombone or oboe, it can take years before you get something finally a bit musical. But even in the first year of learning the saxophone, you can get something quite nice, even if you don’t play so well.’ 

In the world of the symphony orchestra though, with its already complete and complementing catalogue of instruments, the saxophone was a bit of a Johnny-come-lately and was slow to gain respect. The German composers shunned it, and so did most other classical composers, influenced as they were by the Germans. In France though, where the instrument was born, composers such as Ibert and Milhaud, fascinated by its potential, embraced it as their own. In Russia, Alexander Glazunov and later Edison Denisov both wrote concertos for it. The saxophone has still never truly gained admission to the tonal palette of the symphony orchestra and may never do so, possibly because of its glamorous, sexy wail. Yet it’s become the instrument par excellence for evoking a particular imagery. After all, nothing says ‘jazz’ quite like the saxophone. 

It’s this same sound that bewitched the young Delangle. ‘When I was a child, my dad wanted me to play the violin, but I wanted to play a wind instrument,’ he says. ‘Then I heard the saxophone and loved it because it was so close to the voice. I was in a choir and loved singing, and the saxophone was the wind instrument that was closest to the phrasing and sound of the voice.’ 

Forty years on, his relationship with the instrument has only deepened. Though his speciality is classical, Delangle is by no means insular. ‘I’ve played big-band, film and folk music, and have always had lots of connections with the popular aspects of the saxophone,’ he says. ‘The saxophone is a very interesting instrument in that it connects classical and more popular expressions.’ Like the accordion, guitar and double bass, he says, the saxophone is very important in musical education, because kids identify with it since it’s heard everywhere. 

His performance with the SSO will be a reunion with friends, says Delangle. ‘I remember very well recording with the orchestra and Lan Shui. On the first morning we went through the music and it was okay, everyone just doing their job. But over the next three days we really became musical friends – they really understood the lightness and spirit of the French repertoire, and we communicated so well on a musical level. It was a very deep experience for me.’ Count on this being an equally rewarding concert. 

Claude Delangle will perform with Lan Shui and the SSO on 9 May, click here for further information.