Camille Saint-Saëns was something of an anomaly among
French composers of the nineteenth century in that he
wrote in virtually all genres, including opera,
symphonies, concertos, songs, sacred and secular choral
music, solo piano, and chamber music. He was generally
not a pioneer, though he did help to revive some
earlier and largely forgotten dance forms, like the
bourée and gavotte. He was a conservative who wrote
many popular scores scattered throughout the various
genres: the Piano Concert...(+)
Camille Saint-Saëns was something of an anomaly among
French composers of the nineteenth century in that he
wrote in virtually all genres, including opera,
symphonies, concertos, songs, sacred and secular choral
music, solo piano, and chamber music. He was generally
not a pioneer, though he did help to revive some
earlier and largely forgotten dance forms, like the
bourée and gavotte. He was a conservative who wrote
many popular scores scattered throughout the various
genres: the Piano Concerto No. 2, Symphony No. 3
("Organ"), the symphonic poem Danse macabre, the opera
Samson et Dalila, and probably his most widely
performed work, The Carnival of The Animals. While he
remained a composer closely tied to tradition and
traditional forms in his later years, he did develop a
more arid style, less colorful and, in the end, less
appealing. He was also a poet and playwright of some
distinction.
He was one of the great pianists of his age, albeit in
the strict, prim style severe of the previous epoch,
whose crackling precision he carried into the twentieth
century. A lifelong Parisian surrounded by a dazzling
array of talent, the sheer edge of his genius seemed to
cut him off from more than superficial attachments to
those less gifted. But encountering Liszt in 1866, in
Paris for the first performance of his "Gran" Mass --
the aged Liszt whose mightiest works lay behind him --
Saint-Saëns experienced the shock of recognition, the
deep artistic impact of another personality. On March
8, in the salon of Princess Metternich, he was tapped
to play beside Liszt, reading (that is, transposing at
sight) from the orchestral score two movements from
Liszt's Mass, occasioning Liszt's remark, "It is
possible to be as much of a musician as Saint-Saëns;
it is impossible to be more of one!" Then, Liszt played
solo. Saint-Saëns recalled, "...from beneath his
fingers, almost unconsciously, and with an astonishing
range of nuances, there murmured, surged, boomed, and
stormed the waves of the Legend of St. Francis of Paule
walking on the waters. Never again shall we see or hear
anything to compare with it." The consequences of this
meeting would take decades to shake out, interrupted by
the Franco-Prussian War. Through the 1870s Saint-Saëns
emulated Liszt in the composition of symphonic poems,
but it was inevitable that he should follow Liszt's
lead in the Transcendental and Paganini Études in the
exploration of keyboard technique. His own set of
Études (6), composed in 1877, opens disarmingly with a
re-composition of the Preludio of the Transcendental
Études, whose keyboard-sweeping bravura is extended
and enlarged in an homage out-Heroding Herod, so to
speak. The second requires the pianist to bring out a
sighing melody embedded in gently throbbing chords -- a
study in finger independence. The third (dedicated to
Anton Rubinstein) features a Prelude for alternating
hands in a toccata-like disgorgement of flashing
triplets leading to a briskly busy Fugue capped by
vehement octaves. The fourth sets a melody of pleading
charm amid the constant play of two against three -- a
study in rhythm. The fifth is another Prelude and
Fugue, shadowing a confiding melody in a shimmer of
tremolos in fifths and sixths to introduce a ruminative
contrapuntal exercise. The series is rounded off with a
giddy waltz, a scintillant salon trifle, though the
lightning precision required to bring it off is no
trifling matter. .
Although originally composed for piano, I created this
interpretation Of the Prelude & Fugue in A Major (Op.
52 No. 5) for String Quartet (2 Violins, Viola &
Cello).
PARTITION