Signum: Timelines

It is a long way from Henry Purcell to the music of Miles Davis: here the “Orpheus Britannicus,” there the great American jazz trumpeter, whose music the SIGNUM saxophone quartet uses as the basis for one of its works. The quartet succeeds in the stroke of genius of combining two such different musical styles. “Are they a reincarnation of the Beatles?” asked the Hamburger Abendblatt newspaper. The SIGNUM saxophone quartet plays with such flair, such a willingness to experiment, and such youthful freshness that this association seems obvious. The four musicians know no genre boundaries and have mastered the art of entertaining their audience to the fullest. They play from memory, standing up, and with stupendous virtuosity. In their original program, they juxtapose original Works form for example Peter Eötvös with brilliant arrangements of music by Grażyna Bacewicz, Henry Purcell, and Miles Davis.