Introducing the world’s first concertos for saxophone and orchestra by Paul Gilson (1865-1942).

Including two premiere recordings, saxophonist Kurt Bertels hopes not only to make the Belgian composer Paul Gilson’s works for saxophone and orchestra much better known but also to broaden the instrument’s standard repertoire with his CD Works for Saxophone and Orchestra by Paul Gilson.

In collaboration with Flanders Symphony Orchestra, Bertels endeavours to present these works in a historically informed manner, with the intention of linking the instrument to the movement for historically informed performance.

This CD is the artistic result of the doctoral research carried out by Kurt Bertels which focused on the context, performance practice and repertoire of the saxophone school that existed at the Royal Brussels Conservatory between 1867 and 1904 which led to the rediscovery of the autographs of Gilson’s Premier Concerto and Recitatif et Serenade.

The Brussels-born Paul Gilson composed two concertos for saxophone and orchestra, the first ever to be composed in 1902; Gilson also reworked his Recitatif et Serenade for cello and orchestra into a version for tenor saxophone in 1906. Gilson’s First Saxophone Concerto, on the other hand, was only rediscovered after a long search.