[Dixielandjazz] Sigurd Rasher - was Nazi Band Rules

[Stephen G Barbone]

On Jan 19, 2010, at 11:13 AM, dixielandjazz-request at ml.islandnet.com  
wrote:

> Bert Brandsma <dixieorkest at hotmail.com>
>
>
> In Germany before the war was one of the first great classical  
> saxophonists. His name was Sigurd Rasher. He started as a clarinet  
> player but loved the sax and made it his premier instrument. Many of  
> the first important works for saxophone were dedicated to him, like  
> the Glazounow saxophone concerto and many, many others. A lot was  
> written in the 1930s.
>
> When the nazis became gradually more strict during that decade there  
> came these weird regulations. The saxophone was considered American  
> (Which was totally wrong, since it actually was invented by a  
> Belgian who later went to France).
>
> And it was considered a Negro instrument as well. So poor Mr. Rasher  
> had to flee his own country, the only reason being the choice of his  
> instrument. He did a succesfull solo concerto in New York then, but  
> then was not accepted in the US, because he was German! He fled to  
> Cuba and for several years was doing country labour to stay alive.
>
> Finally after years he was accepted in the USA because of his wife ,  
> who was accepted as a refugee. I believe she was Danish if memory  
> doesn't fail me.

Dear Bert:

Oh my, Sigurd Rascher. What a great player.

I first heard him in concert at Duke University, Durham North Carolina  
in the 1950s. It was a similar experience to hearing Charlie Parker  
for the first time.

INCREDIBLE!!!!  The power and energy with which he played was  
astounding. Jazzers can learn from him.

Below is his NY Times obit.

March 26, 2001 - NY Times - By Douglas Martin
Sigurd Rascher, 94, Who Showed the Sax Could Be Classy

Sigurd M. Rascher, a classical saxophonist compared by some to Casals  
and Segovia for his influence on his instrument and its concert  
repertory, died on Feb. 25 at his home in Shushan, N.Y. He was 94.

In the course of a 50-year career, Mr. Rascher played with virtually  
all the major orchestras, many of which have never had another  
saxophone soloist. A critic for The New York Times wrote that the  
saxophone had gained ''aesthetic respectability'' on Nov. 11, 1939,  
when Mr. Rascher was the first solo saxophonist for the New York  
Philharmonic in 3,543 concerts.

Mr. Rascher was proud of playing dance music, but he feared his  
instrument's potential to add rich tones to more serious musical fare  
was too often unachieved. For that failure, he blamed both mechanical  
modifications in the original design of Adolphe Sax's instrument and  
bad musicianship.

''The nonexistence of a traditionally recognized tone quality gave  
rise to this grotesque situation,'' he wrote in remarks that appear on  
the ''Classic Saxophone On-Line!'' Web site (www.Classicsax.com). ''No  
wonder that serious musicians disdain the saxophone!''

Two years ago, when the journal American Record Guide compared Mr.  
Rascher to Casals and Segovia, it was by some measures an  
understatement. For cello or guitar, the other two had available the  
works of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven as well as their more modern  
heirs, but the saxophone was not invented until 1841.

Mr. Rascher first learned the clarinet and piano. When a friend  
mistakenly told him the saxophone was easy to play, he picked one up  
at a pawnshop and began supplementing his income as a shop teacher in  
Berlin in the 1930's with dance band jobs.

But his aspirations for the saxophone soared higher. First he  
perfected his technique on the instrument Sax invented to unite the  
expressive power of string instruments, the force of brass instruments  
and the many shadings of woodwinds. He occasionally played in the  
Berlin Philharmonic when saxophones were required.

Then he approached Edmund von Borck, the composer and conductor of the  
Berlin Philharmonic, and asked him whether he had ever thought of the  
saxophone as a solo instrument, according to an article in Woodwind  
World in 1971. He gave a vigorous no, but after Mr. Rascher played for  
him for a few moments, he asked for his address.

Months passed, and Mr. Rascher had almost forgotten the conversation,  
when von Borck called to say a concerto was ready. The piece was  
selected for a music festival in Hanover in 1932. ''It was the first  
time I ever played with an orchestra, and I created an unbelievable  
sensation, not only at the festival but in music circles throughout  
Europe,'' Mr. Rascher said. He told of another warm reception in  
Berlin a few months later.

But what seemed the beginning of a meteoric rise came to a halt when  
the Nazis rejected ''foreign'' instruments like the saxophone, which  
was invented in Belgium. Mr. Rascher left Germany and did not return  
for a quarter century.

He lived and taught in Copenhagen and Malmo, Sweden, performing with  
symphonies throughout Europe, including ones in London, Prague, Paris  
and Warsaw -- more than 200 in all. He also encouraged composers to  
write for the saxophone. Among those who wrote pieces for Mr. Rascher  
to play were Glazunov, Ibert and Hindemith.

Sigurd Manfred Rascher was born on May 15, 1907, in what is now  
Wuppertal, in the Westphalian section of Germany. His father was a  
doctor, and he grew up surrounded by music at home. He concentrated  
mainly on the clarinet in his early studies.

When a colleague in his dance band ridiculed the saxophone's narrow  
range of two and a half octaves, he developed a fingering method that  
let him play four octaves.

''No one before me had done this,'' he wrote in notes for a press kit  
in the 1950's. ''Today, 25 years later, some of the more ambitious  
players are beginning to follow my lead.''

He noted that his musical experiments were not appreciated by his  
neighbors or landlady. ''A quick change of habitat saved me from the  
attacks,'' he wrote.

Mr. Rauscher's scheduled performances in New York and Boston in 1939  
were followed by invitations to perform in Washington and at Town Hall  
in Manhattan the next year. At the Town Hall concert, Arturo Toscanini  
hugged him.

He decided to stay in the United States, where his wife, Ann Mari, and  
his son, Staffan, had joined him. But after difficulties with his  
immigration papers, he went to Cuba, where he spent most of the war  
harvesting sugar cane.

When he returned, the family settled in Shushan. Three daughters were  
born there, Kristina Rascher, now of Düsseldorf; Carina Rascher of  
Lürrach, Germany; and Astrid Radsh of Aberdeen, Scotland. Mr. Rascher  
is also survived by a sister, Brigid Nosal of Salem, N.Y., and a  
brother, Michael, of Manhattan.

Mr. Rascher taught at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, Union  
College, the University of Mississippi and Yale. He formed the Rascher  
Saxophone Quartet with his daughter Carina. The group is still active,  
though Mr. Rascher played his last solo at 73.

Among his other contributions to the saxophone, he revived the making  
of saxophone mouthpieces in the manner Sax had originally specified.  
Newer models, yielding louder but harsher tones, had almost completely  
replaced them.

When asked about this and his other achievements, Mr. Rascher always  
had the same straightforward response: ''Someone had to do it.''

Hear him at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TI_z3IfPsM

or

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npH-DULg5lI&feature=related

or

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvLzR3QZcJo&feature=related

Gee, I hope no one says technique gets in the way, or worries about  
too many notes <grin>

Cheers,
Steve Barbone
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband