Saint-Saëns Showcase (2 of 2)

No. 393 of the ongoing ITYWLTMT series of audio montages is this week's Friday Blog and Podcast. It can be found in our archives at https://archive.org/details/pcast393

=====================================================================

For the second of two Fridays, I have prepared an all- Saint-Saëns program, this time featuring two piano concertos, a symphony and a short orchestral piece.

The corpus that composes his five piano concerti provides a chronological tour through much of his career: the period of composition spans from 1858 to 1896. 

A highlight of No.3 is the second movement Nocturne, with its tender melody, while No.4 features hymn-like melodies and dazzling brass fanfares. These performances are taken from the Pascal Rogé cycle with Dutoit conducting. Dutoit also conducts the Marche Heroïque, used as an entr’acte between the two concerti.

The Second Symphony written some seven years after the First,  displays more imagination, ingenuity and elegance in, for example, the use of a fugue as a basis of the opening movement. The new Symphony was not performed until 1862, under the baton of Jules Pasdeloup to whom the work is dedicated. It is more sparingly scored than the First Symphony. After much assertive material, the brief second movement is hesitant and delicate in character and treads daintily. There is much to recall eighteenth century gentility. The following scherzo third movement with interesting springy cross-rhythms skips confidently and the work concludes with a sunny tarantella reminiscent of Mendelssohn.

I think you will love this music too

Saint-Saëns Showcase (1 of 2)

No. 392 of the ongoing ITYWLTMT series of audio montages is this week's Friday Blog and Podcast. It can be found in our archives at https://archive.org/details/pcast392

=====================================================================

For the next two Fridays, I have prepared a pair of all- Saint-Saëns programs. The scheme I adopted for both is to complete the cycle of piano concertos (building on concertos 2 and 5 shared earlier on our podcasting channel) by featuring one here (and two on the next program), a symphony and a short orchestral piece.

In addition to the First concerto (taken, as are the two next week from the Pascal Rogé cycle with Dutoit conducting), today’s post includes a pair of short pieces for wind instrument, one with orchestra accompaniment the other with harp accompaniment.

The opening piece, Phaeton, is a short tone poem inspitrd by the Greek myth about the son of the Oceanid Clymene and the sun-god Helios. Out of desire to have his parentage confirmed, he travels to the sun-god's palace in the east. There he is recognised by his father, and asks him for the privilege to drive his chariot for a single day. This joy ride does not end well…

Prodigiously gifted, Saint-Saëns entered the Paris Conservatoire in 1848, at the age of 13. There he discovered the symphonies of the great German and Austrian composers and soon began to try his own hand at the genre. The Symphony in A major stems from this period and although it was most likely never performed in his lifetime it demonstrates his exceptional talent to the full. 

I think you will love this music too