Berio: Sequenza IX for alto saxophone

The considerable virtuosity in this sequence is nonetheless clearly expressive in character: quick passages, long, intense breaths, colour changes using multiple sounds that require speedy articulation. The very variable discourse, alternating florid, ornamented figurations and long, restful held notes or notes in the "recto tono" manner reach back to an ancestral experience of the instrumental genre. (Radu Stan)