Although a conservatory-trained flautist, Adolphe Sax (1814–1894) became a highly successful and innovative designer of musical instruments. At age 24, he designed the modern bass clarinet and improved the ophicleide (a pre-tuba low register brass instrument you may have heard in historically informed performances of Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique) before turning to instruments of his own design. In 1841, he demonstrated his prototype saxophone, an instrument designed to combine the agility of a woodwind with the projection of a brass instrument. His stable of inventions also included the saxhorn (a valved bugle, still popular today), the saxotromba (a sort of valved French horn designed for a mounted band) and the saxtuba (a valved instrument shaped like the Roman military horn or cornu, the ancestor of the modern Sousaphone). If not the father of branding, Sax was certainly an early and enthusiastic adopter!

The saxophone was immediately adopted by military bands, and eventually spread to concert bands, wind bands, dance bands, and ragtime, rhythm and blues, jazz and rock bands. Virtuoso jazz players like Charlie Parker and Philadelphia’s own John Coltrane showcased the saxophone as a solo instrument of great expression and versatility. Sax had expected the saxophone to be as quickly accepted in classical music, but despite (or perhaps because of!) an enthusiastic endorsement by Hector Berlioz, it was originally considered more of a novelty than a serious instrument. By the early 20th century, classical composers were increasingly using saxophones for their unique color, but as late as 1956, Ralph Vaughan Williams lampooned the general perception of saxophones in his notes for his 9th Symphony, whose scoring included three saxophones: “[they] are not expected, except in one place in the scherzo, to behave like demented cats, but are allowed to be their own romantic selves.”

Composer Dominick DiOrio was fortunate to have an extraordinary talented saxophonist, Otis Murphy, as a colleague at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, and he conceived of a piece featuring Murphy and his own chorus NOTUS. DiOrio turned to playwright and poet Jacqueline Goldfinger for a libretto. The two had previously collaborated on A Bright Morning Dawns, commissioned by Mendelssohn Chorus. DiOrio provides the following program notes: “Weaver of Eternities is commissioned by NOTUS, Indiana University Contemporary Vocal Ensembles, and dedicated to saxophonist Otis Murphy, Professor of Music

(Saxophone) at the IU Jacobs School of Music. The work is a positive and joyous musical expression of poet Jacqueline Goldfinger’s evocation of family: a value centered and most dear to Otis, Jackie, and myself. Its propulsive outer sections are matched by the intensity of feeling in the contrasting middle section, where the saxophone is featured as a concerto soloist, complete with a cadenza flourish of warmth and virtuosity.” Librettist Jacqueline Goldfinger adds, “I wrote Weaver of Eternities specifically for Dominick and [this commission]. While I write my own work as a poet, I also specialize in writing poetry for composers who are looking to create unique choral work that fits their thematic interests. In the past, I've written pieces that include: the winter-themed Halcyon Days for Composer Melissa Dunphy and VOCES8's Live from London Christmas Concert, and the family-themed Letters to Our Children for Composer Justine F. Chen and Resonance Works' Everyday Heroes Series. I find it meaningful to collaborate with these brilliant composers as they add contemporary work to the choral canon, offering audiences an opportunity to see the modern world reflected within the larger context of historical choral music.” Goldfinger was mindful of her own children when she wrote Weavers of Eternities, which gives the text a special warmth, and has dedicated the poem to her twins Hava and Ezra Goldfinger.

The opening stanza of the text references the first part of the prayer Shema Yisrael (Hear, O Israel), which contains the essence of Jewish belief and is recited twice daily. One of its commands is to teach the Shema to your children, which the opening stanza shows in a wonderful tableau, the mother nursing the newborn, providing physical sustenance, and the father whispering a beautifully crafted paraphrase of the Shema to the infant, providing spiritual sustenance. DiOrio’s expressive music has an almost cinematic quality to it. The opening saxophone solo is marked as an invocation and has a sound suggestive of the ram’s-horn shofar that ushers in important days in the Jewish calendar. The piano and marimba add a sparkle to the succeeding propulsive music, the wonder and magic of a new-born child. DiOrio indulges in some tone painting, the ever-ascending line of “rising up” and the orchestral crescendo into the fortissimo wailing of the infant. There is a main theme, the joyous, exuberant melody setting the words from the Shema, sung with unison voices and saxophone and reprised at the end of the piece.