Select scores and sound files of Mr. Saylor’s music may be accessed on the Internet at:
Select wind works are published by
Comic Symphony for Clarinet and Piano (2012)
The titular confusion of this work came about in this way: the tunes first appeared in a 1991 musical I wrote based on Molière’s Le Malade Imaginaire (The Imaginary Invalid). Lacking faith in the musical but liking the tunes, I fashioned a few of them into a symphony – a comic symphony. Yet, it seemed to lack luster. When the opportunity came to write a work for my friend and fellow Snark Ensemble performer Ben Redwine, I decided what the material lacked was a solo voice. The tunes are still there but now greatly elaborated and expanded upon. The final work is still very much a symphony – and no other title seems to suit it – but symphonies are generally for orchestra. Still, the size and the instrumentation for the form we call "symphony" have varied greatly over the years, so perhaps it’s the nature of the music that makes a symphony and not the scoring.
Oboe Trio
Maurice Saylor began the composition of his "Oboe Trio" at the request of oboist Robin Eazer for his degree recital at the Catholic University of America. During the work's composition, the oboist was diagnosed with leukemia. That fact changed the nature of the composition. The oboe came to personify the oboist in a trio that contrasts sections of struggle with plateus tranquil, mournful and elegiac until the coda, where the music drifts away into infinity. The work is dedicated to the memory of Robin Eazer who died in 1983.
Solo parts included: Oboe, Viola, and Cello
There It Is for Clarinet Quartet
This suite is drawn from the composer's new score for the vintage 1928 silent comedy of the same name starring Charlie Bowers. The original film score runs 20 minutes and is scored for piccolo, sopranino recorder, 2 soprano recorders, ocarina, oboe, English horn, Eb clarinet, Bb clarinet, 2 bass clarinets, contrabass clarinet, banjo, slide whistle, saw, glockenspiel, percussion, toy piano, 3 melodicas, accordian, and piano. Here it has been pared down to 11 minutes and rescored for clarinet quartet.
Synopsis of the wonderfully weird film: Scotland Yard detective Charley MacNeesha carries his constant companion MacGregor--who is either a hairy insect or a buggy-looking mouse--in a matchbox. The pair travels to New York to solve the case of the Fuzz-Faced Phantom who causes full-grown chickens to hatch from eggs, pots to rain from the ceiling, and pants to dance of their own volition in a surrealist comedy that anticipated Salvador Dali and Luis Bunuel's "An Andalusian Dog" by more than a year.
Solo parts included: Clarinet in Eb, Clarinet in Bb 1, Clarinet in Bb 2, Bass Clarinet
Irish Tune from County Derry for Clarinet Choir Percy Grainger/arr. Maurice Saylor
In 1902, Percy Grainger wrote the first of his 5 settings of "Irish Tune from County Derry," scoring it for 2 female voices, 4 male voices and piano (for practice only) and labeling it "British Folk-Music Settings Nr. 5." It was first published Schott & Co., 1912. The untitled tune had been collected by Miss Jane Ross, of New Town, Limavady Co., Derry (Ireland) and first printed in "The Petrie Collection of the Ancient Music of Ireland" (Dublin, 1855) on page 57, which is headed: "Name unknown."
This scoring for clarinet choir takes advantage of the large, close, and evenly spaced range of the members of the clarinet family, allowing most of the notes to remain in the clarinet's chalumeau register for a rich, warm sound.
Solo parts included: Clarinet in Eb 1, Clarinet in Eb 2, Clarinet in Bb 1, Clarinet in Bb 2, Clarinet in Bb 3, Clarinet in Bb 4, Alto Clarinet, Bass Clarinet 1, Bass Clarinet 2, Contra-Alto Clarinet in Eb
