Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns (1835 – 1921) was a
French composer, organist, conductor and pianist of the
Romantic era. His best-known works include Introduction
and Rondo Capriccioso (1863), the Second Piano Concerto
(1868), the First Cello Concerto (1872), Danse macabre
(1874), the opera Samson and Delilah (1877), the Third
Violin Concerto (1880), the Third ("Organ") Symphony
(1886) and The Carnival of the Animals (1886).
As a young man, Saint-Saëns was enthusiastic for the
most mod...(+)
Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns (1835 – 1921) was a
French composer, organist, conductor and pianist of the
Romantic era. His best-known works include Introduction
and Rondo Capriccioso (1863), the Second Piano Concerto
(1868), the First Cello Concerto (1872), Danse macabre
(1874), the opera Samson and Delilah (1877), the Third
Violin Concerto (1880), the Third ("Organ") Symphony
(1886) and The Carnival of the Animals (1886).
As a young man, Saint-Saëns was enthusiastic for the
most modern music of the day, particularly that of
Schumann, Liszt and Wagner, although his own
compositions were generally within a conventional
classical tradition. He was a scholar of musical
history, and remained committed to the structures
worked out by earlier French composers. This brought
him into conflict in his later years with composers of
the impressionist and dodecaphonic schools of music;
although there were neoclassical elements in his music,
foreshadowing works by Stravinsky and Les Six, he was
often regarded as a reactionary in the decades around
the time of his death.
The Septet in E flat major Op 65, composed for the
unusual combination of trumpet, two violins, viola,
cello, double bass and piano, was written at the
request of Émile Lemoine for his chamber music society
which he whimsically entitled ‘La Trompette’. This
society was founded in 1867 and Saint-Saëns regularly
performed there along with other well known musicians
of the time including Louis Diémer, Martin-Pierre
Marsick, and Isidor Philipp. In this neoclassical work
employing seventeenth-century dance forms, the two
violins, viola and cello parts were often doubled in
performance with an additional string quartet. To
Lemoine, Saint-Saëns confessed in October 1907:
‘When I think how much you pestered me to make me
produce, against my better judgment, this piece that I
did not want to write and which has become one of my
great successes, I never understood why.’ Lemoine had
implored Saint-Saëns for many years to compose a work
combining the trumpet with the instruments ordinarily
available to the society. Jokingly he would respond
that he could create a work for guitar and thirteen
trombones. In 1879 he presented to Lemoine a piece
entitled Préambule as a Christmas present and played
it at their first concert in January 1880. Pleased with
the result, he promised that he would complete the work
with the Préambule as the first movement. True to his
word he performed the complete composition for the
first time on 28 December 1880 with himself at the
piano, Sylvain Teste with the trumpet, the quartet –
Martin-Pierre Marsick, Guillaume Rémy, Louis van
Waefelghem and Jules Delsart, doubled with excellent
effect by a second quartet of Émile Mendels, Austruy,
Johannès Wolff and Louis Heggyesi – and the double
bass played by Lucien Dereul. The four movements,
labelled Préambule, Menuet, Intermède and Gavotte et
Final, reveal the classical proclivity of the composer.
However, the ingenious integration of the trumpet,
namesake of this chamber music organization, with the
string quintet and piano, is rare in musical
literature.
Note from Lemoine on the title page of the Saint-Saens
manuscript: Here is the history of this song. For many
years I had been bothering my friend St Saens, asking
him to compose for me, for our Trumpet evenings, a
serious work in which there was a trumpet mixed with
the stringed instruments and the piano that we usually
had; he joked me first about that weird combination of
instruments that he would do before a piece for guitar
and thirteen trombones etc. In 1879 he gave me (on
December 29th), probably for my Christmas presents, a
piece for trumpet, piano, quartet and double bass
entitled Preamble and I had it played on January 6th,
1880, on our first evening. The test probably pleased
Saint Saëns because he said to me while leaving: "You
will have your complete piece, the Preamble will be the
first movement." He kept his word and the complete
septet (of which I give the autograph manuscript to the
Conservatoire Library) was played for the first time on
December 28, 1880 (the beginning of our evenings of the
season). The artists were: M. Teste (trumpet) the
author (piano); the quartet MM. Marsick, Rémy, van
Waefelghem and Delsart doubled by a second quartet: MM.
Mendels, Austruy, Wolff and Hegyesi, Double Bass M.
Dereul. This septet can naturally be played with a
single instrument for each part of the strings but it
is (in the opinion of the author) best effect if the
quartet is doubled! He is very handsome with the
orchestra, so I heard him at the Colonne Concerts. E.
Lemoine, Paris, April 2, 1894
Source: Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camille_Saint-Sa%C3%ABns
).
Although originally scored for Trumpet, Strings &
Piano, I created this Arrangement of the The Piano
Septet in Eb Major (Opus 65) for French Horn, Strings
(Violins, Violas, Cellos & Basses) & Piano.
PARTITION