Numerous editions of baroque music have prefaces indicating that the music is for diverse instruments. This open-ended approach to making music was a fairly standard manner of bringing music to the average home musician particularly in the 17 th century where for example Italian collections of music were written for diversi stromenti. As late as the
Couperin concerts in the early 18 th century we are given to understand that the concerts could be played on anything and even played on harpsichord alone. This practical approach ensured that the music was played by anyone with a score and an instrument to hand.
In addition composers re-wrote music for other instruments sometimes transposing up or down to suit the different ranges. Editions of music saying for oboe or violin were common as well as those mentioning for bassoon or violoncello.
Throughout the hundreds of years of so called classical music in so called western European traditions, the search for musical expressiveness has been a constant striving. The human voice, thus singing, has been an example of the highpoint of expressiveness and we are lucky enough to have over the last hundred years or so the stand out operatic performers of
the 20 th century as examples of this. With this in mind we present to you today another version of the wonder of baroque music, on saxophone and harpsichord. Adolphe Sax was in search of expressiveness in instrumental music so he developed what is now called the saxophone. This was patented in 1846.