When Philip Attard, Joseph Vella, Godfrey Mifsud and Samuel Mallia came together to form a saxophone quartet two years ago, it was for a rather unusual concert.
“It sounds a bit comical, but it was a show for dogs,” said Attard, the quartet’s soprano saxophonist, speaking to Times2 alongside Vella and Mifsud at a rehearsal room at the Malta School of Music in Ħamrun, where all three teach. “That’s where it started”.
While Mallia was abroad at the time and unable to make the performance − with another saxophonist playing in his stead − the concert marked the beginning of the Melika Quartet, Malta’s sole saxophone quartet that on Tuesday will perform alongside dancers at the Malta International Arts Festival.
“The link with [Maltese composer] Karl Fiorini was important because he liked the group and suggested we keep it going,” said Attard, with Mifsud noting the group’s schedule “developed naturally” after their initial concert together.
Concerts at Floriana’s Robert Samut Hall and Gozo’s Victoria International Arts Festival followed, with Mallia joining the group shortly after its debut performance.
And for one of the quartet’s members in particular, the group had been a long time coming.
“I had to wait a bit, because there were no saxophonists here at first,” said tenor saxophonist Vella, who after studying at conservatoires in Belgium returned to Malta and began teaching at the Malta School of Music − formerly the Johann Strauss School of Music in Valletta before its relocation to Ħamrun.
“I started the saxophone course here… and it’s a pleasure for me to see former students now professional musicians,” he said, gesturing to Attard, who studied with Vella before continuing his studies at the University of Malta and later, at the Royal College of Music in London.
Mifsud, another of Attard’s former teachers at the University of Malta, also recalled an unusual journey into playing in the saxophone quartet, noting he had been dedicated solely to clarinet before joining the group.
Bass clarinet player for the Malta Philharmonic for more than 25 years, Mifsud performs in the Melika Quartet on baritone saxophone – the lowest pitched instrument of the group.
“I used to mainly play in a clarinet quartet for quite a number of years – and a woodwind quintet as well… When I started with these guys, it was refreshing; after many years of doing other stuff, doing something fresh was refreshing,” he said.
And that novelty was not confined to simply a change of instrument, with the Melika Quartet – named after an indigenous Maltese plant – focusing on classical and contemporary saxophone repertoire.
Growing interest
Vella noted that when he started performing such repertoire in Malta, “there was no classical saxophone going on at all – at concerts people used to tell me the saxophone is a jazz instrument,” adding the genre was “still unusual”.
The saxophone was invented in the 1840s, relatively recently compared to most other classical instruments.
Attard agreed but noted that interest in the genre was growing as the quartet performed: “The repertoire is very good. We have big names like [late Russian Romantic composer] Alexander Glazunov, [Hungarian-Austrian composer] György Ligeti… and all the big French names of the 20th century”.
“It’s repertoire that was written for saxophone quartet originally, and also there’s a lot of really interesting transcriptions,” he said, pointing to a work in the quartet’s repertoire by French Impressionist heavyweight Ravel that was originally written for string quartet.
“And gigs have been coming fairly regularly, because I think it’s an interesting thing at the moment – something different.”
Local pressures
While the quartet’s repertoire appears to have captured the minds of audiences in Malta, the group noted that certain local pressures persisted, preventing them from being able to perform more regularly.
While saxophone quartets in larger countries were able to “learn a programme or two, then tour them for the whole year, which makes it much easier to sustain professionally… it wouldn’t be possible for us to sustain this in Malta due to its size”, Attard explained.
Mifsud agreed, emphasising “the main challenge is you have to prepare a programme for one concert, then learn a new one for another so we don’t have the continuity of playing the same stuff many times over”.
Reflecting on their time spent studying and performing overseas, the quartet noted there appeared to be a lack of awareness of classical repertoire in Malta.
“I think what we mostly miss is a good concert venue”
Vella said he had been “surprised in France, at how all young people appreciate classical music… I think it misses appreciation from the young generation in Malta because they are not exposed to it at school”.
Asked what lessons could be gleaned from approaches seen in other countries, the quartet agreed that Malta was missing a dedicated performance hall for classical music.
“I think what we mostly miss is a good concert venue,” Mifsud said. “There are a couple [of performance venues] but a proper concert hall in Malta should be one of the priorities; we certainly miss it as a small group, and definitely the orchestra misses it for larger concerts… it would be worth investing in”.
Tuesday’s performance
Turning to the group’s upcoming concert, he explained that with much of the programme featuring dancers alongside the quartet, the tempo, or speed of the repertoire was of particular importance during the group’s rehearsals.
“Dancers are very sensitive to tempo, even minimal fluctuations – so it is very important for us that whatever material we present them beforehand, we have to stick to that tempo,” said Mifsud, with Attard adding the group had supplied recordings of the pieces for the dancers to rehearse to in advance of the performance.
Tuesday’s concert features a range of repertoire, including works by Ravel, Ligeti and various contemporary pieces including Maltese composer Christopher Muscat’s Saxophase, commissioned by the Malta International Arts Festival.
The Melika Quartet will be joined by dancers from The Dance Workshop, Incite Motion, the College of Dance and the YADA Dance Company, with choreography by Pamela Kerr, Christiane Borg Manche, Justin Roy Barker and Felix Busuttil, Rosario Raineri and Ingrid Scerri, respectively.
Asked about their future plans, the quartet said they planned to commission more music for performances in Malta later in the year, while also looking further afield.
“I think the idea is to continue playing as much as we can and take it overseas,” said Attard. “Perhaps a small tour would be the next goal”.
The Melika Saxophone Quartet will perform at Teatru Manoel’s ‘Young Creatives in Motion’ performance on Tuesday night as part of the Malta International Arts Festival. For more information, visit festivals.mt.
