Though the saxophone has never found a regular place in the orchestra it has nevertheless captured the interest of a long line of composers; a square peg doesn't need to fit into any orchestral round hole when it is centre-stage. It is, too, one of the instruments whose technique has been advanced by players of jazz—a field in which John Harle remains active. There are now exponents of awesome ability, worthy of the attention of serious composers such as, in this recording, Bennett—who is also given to crossing the musical tracks.

This is the second recording by BIS of Sally Beamish’s music, and the four pieces it contains confirm utterly her high standing. Her work is thoughtfully lyrical, intense, individual, instinctively dramatic, in ways that remind me somewhat of Nicholas Mawmusic. Like him she has a particular gift for expressive harmony and timbre. The earliest piece here is No, I’m not afraid (1989), six poignant poems written from prison by Irina Ratushinskaya spoken – by Beamish herself – against sparse but hugely effective instrumental backgrounds and interspersed with five purely instrumental interludes. The disc opens with The Caledonian Road of 1997. The name of this piece refers not just to the north London thoroughfare remembered by Beamish from childhood but to her own pilgrimage northward to Scotland, where she now lives. The music resonates with a sense of ritual, of something inevitable. By contrast, the work that follows, the unabashedly poetic The Day Dawn (written for a summer school organised by Contemporary Music-making for Amateurs in 1997, and revised in 2000) derives from a Shetland fiddle tune, and is all about new beginnings.

Things that don't fit neatly into pigeonholes have always had a hard time, and so it has been with the saxophone; Hoffnung's string-tuba would have had very big problems. Sax was a tireless inventor: his plans for a monster canon, and a device for playing loud music from Parisian high ground never bore fruit, but the former anticipated Saddam Hussein and the latter, scaled down, is with us as Muzak. Though the saxophone has never found a regular place in the orchestra it has nevertheless captured the interest of a long line of composers; a square peg doesn't need to fit into any orchestral round hole when it is centre-stage.