Album Leaf for Frau Betty Schott Saxophone Quartet

Album Leaf for Frau Betty Schott, 1875

Richard Wagner (1813 – 1883)

Saxophone Quartet SATB

Album Leaf for Frau Betty Schott, by Richard Wagner, arranged for Saxophone Quartet SATB. Wagner composed the Album Leaf in 1875. The piano piece was a gift for Betty Schott, the wife of one of his publishers. Like his Siegfried Idyll, it uses themes and motifs from the last act of Wagner’s opera Siegfried.

The piano version of Album Leaf for Frau Betty Schott is in the key of E flat major. The arrangement for saxophone quartet is in the original key. As you’d expect of Wagner, the piece is very chromatic. There are some clashing dissonances that resolve into beautiful harmonies. Motifs and melodies pass between all the parts. There is no place to hide in this piece.

• The range for each saxophone part is shown below.
• Audio and score excerpts are available above.
• Registered users can download a complete sample score and full length audio file of Album Leaf for Frau Betty Schott Saxophone Quartet on the ‘Samples’ tab.

Richard Wagner, opera/music drama composer and impresario, was not a good man. Bluntly, he was a bigoted con artist with a reputation for borrowing – but not repaying – large sums of money from anyone who would lend it to him.

Until his final years, Wagner’s life was characterized by political exile, turbulent love affairs, poverty and repeated flight from his creditors. His controversial writings on music, drama and politics have attracted extensive comment, notably, since the late 20th century, where they express anti-Semitic sentiments. For all that, there is no denying his influence on the modern music. The effect of his ideas can be traced in many of the arts throughout the 20th century; his influence spread beyond composition into conducting, philosophy, literature, the visual arts and theater.