More than a Rough Draft: Debussy’s Rapsodie Pour Orchestre et Saxophone

The standard repertoire of the concert saxophone is an eclectic collection of works by composers who are generally not considered to be household classical staples. Supplementing these esoteric titles are a small amount of works written by better known composers, among most famous of which being Claude Debussy and his Rapsodie pour Orchestre et Saxophone (1903). Despite the significance of a composer like Debussy writing for the saxophone and his relative fame in comparison to other composers in of concert saxophone’s standard repertoire, Rapsodie remains largely unrecognized by musicologists in the context of Debussy’s compositional output and musical development.