The present book is an edition of collected transcriptions and arrangements of the popular pieces by foreign composers for saxophone (in Es and in B) and piano. They may be used as an artistic repertoire in musical educational process in senior classes of the music schools and colleges and also in concert practice of the saxophonists. The collected book consists of the pieces of different epochs and styles and from the author’s point of view it plays an important role in forming of the artistic taste of the students. Also it has a significant meaning because at the present time the saxophone concert practice is at the early stage only because of the long time supremacy of the Soviet ideology. According to the communist doctrine the saxophone was considered as a bourgeois instrument and practically there were no saxophone classes in Russian music institutes of all types. The first attempts to issue different collected readers were made at the beginning of the 1980s and it was the period of the first saxophone classes’ appearance in the professional music institutes.
The saxophone is not a single musical instrument but there is an entire saxophone family which when complete covers approximately the range of the piano. The original family consists of seven members: Contrabass - Bass - Baritone - Tenor - Alto - Soprano - Sopranino but the most frequently used are Baritone - Tenor - Alto - Soprano. Music for all saxophones is written in treble clef and they are tuned to a perfect forth (B-flat - E-flat) in relation to each other.
The different saxophone members represent the great variety of musical and acoustic possibilities of this unique instrument. The proposal transcriptions are intended for the most popular saxophone kinds: Alto (in Es) and Soprano/Tenor (in B). Each piece has the preliminary commentary devoted to its musical and technical peculiarities, phrases, specific touches and breathing. The author of the transcriptions and arrangements hopes that