 | 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 |
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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
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