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

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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