Camille Saint-Saëns
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Camille Saint-Saens: Complete Concertos (New Talents Edition
$19.99CDBerlin Classics
Jan 16, 20260304153BC -
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Saint-Saens: Piano Concertos Nos. 2 & 4
$29.99VinylIdil Biret Archive
Feb 27, 2026IBA-LP009 -
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Saint-Saens: Piano Quartet, Piano Quintet / Ortiz
Saint-Saëns holds a vital place in the history of French chamber music. At a time when his compatriots were more devoted to opera and song, Saint-Saëns (who wrote both, too) repeatedly produced chamber music of compelling individuality and lasting significance. The 1875 Piano Quartet in B flat major, Op 41 remains one of the great works in the chamber repertory, a masterful example of the composer’s organisational skill and lyric gifts. The gorgeous Barcarolle is followed by the youthful Piano Quintet in A minor, Op 14, a brilliantly confident work with a concerto-like role for the piano.
Violin Showpieces / Erick Friedman
Poème
Complete Works For Piano And W
Frensh Music For Flute And Har
Saint-Saens, Wieniawski: Violin Concertos / Rachlin, Mehta
The Saint-Saëns comes first and has many delights to offer. The first movement has a splendidly passionate lyrical impulse and the Andantino is sheer delight: it has one of the composer's most delicious inspirations, a siciliano which is relished here by one and all (including us). Note Rachlin's gentle reprise of the lovely lyrical theme, surrounded by delicate touches of woodwind colour at 4'53" and again his re-presentation at 6'41", high up and exquisite. This is what fine fiddling is all about. But the performance reaches its peak in the splendid finale, the longest movement, which has wit and fire and a memorable chorale melody thrown in for good measure. It appears ethereally on the violins at 3'55" (Mehta and his orchestra wonderfully persuasive); then at 4'18" the soloist relishes its beauty. When the brass finally get their teeth into it (843") they let rip with real gusto, and then the soloist admonishes them with a gentle riposte which includes a disarming pianissimo echo. The sinuously flowing opening of the Wieniawski is beautifully and naturally moulded by the orchestra, with fine contributions from the principal oboe and solo horn, and when the soloist arrives the music's rhapsodic feeling continues most pleasingly. The second subject is beguiling enough when it first appears, but at its reprise (6'14") Rachlin's 50110 voce playing makes one's toes curl with pleasure. At 1135" the orchestra's principal clarinet shows what he is made of in the preparation for the glorious Andante, where the violin enters gently but with a simmering, sultry tone. The chimerical finale is full of joy and has the lightest touch from all concerned. I have played this record a lot and shall return to it with much pleasure. Not all music has to move mountains like Beethoven's Eroica.
-- Gramophone [12/1992]
Saint-Saens: Ascanio / Tourniaire, Haute Ecole de Geneve

Ascanio is the student of Benvenuto Cellini, a legendary Florentine sculptor. This latter character’s genius and romances came to know a great operatic destiny. The name Ascanio is also the title of a grand lyrical drama by Camille Saint-Saëns which premiered in 1890, and is based on Paul Meurice’s play. The opera was abridged several times and reassembled despite the composer’s strong objections. It is a wonderful work, far too little-known, in which Italian lyricism, Wagnerian influence and French elegance combine. For the very first time, we will be able to hear the complete premiere performance of the version abiding by the 1888 autograph manuscript. It is brought to us by the impassioned conductor, Guillaume Tourniaire, and a topflight, French-speaking cast. They are accompanied by the Orchestra and Choirs from the Grand Théâtre de Genève and the Haute École de Musique. All this has been meticulously and enthusiastically recorded by B Records.
Zino Francescatti In Performance - Tchaikovsky, Bruch, Et Al
Francescatti who was a year younger than Heifetz, was among the foremost violinists of the mid-20th century, from about 1935 to 1975. In the words of critic Henry Roth, there was "a special character, a vitality and a savoir faire to his playing that set him apart from a host of gifted virtuosi who possessed vibrant sound and creditable musicianship." The concert performances collected here, all of them previously unissued, provide good examples of his Italianate lyricism and ravishing tone.
Saint-Saens: Cello Concertos, Suite / Walevska, Inbal, Monte Carlo
This is one of those “sleeper” discs that you overlook to your disadvantage. Every cellist plays at least the two concertos, but there are surprisingly few truly excellent recordings. Christine Walevska not only plays wonderfully, but she gives us all of the composer’s major works for cello and orchestra, and the performances have that French crispness and polish that so many more famous soloists lack. She’s also very well recorded, and the Monte Carlo Orchestra has this musical idiom in its collective bones. It really is rewarding to hear these performances again, so lovingly remastered and repackaged.
-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com
Saint-Saens: Complete Concertos, Vol. 3
STRING QUARTETS
Saint-Saens: Les Barbares
Saint-Saëns: Complete Symphonies / Soustrot, Malmö Symphony
Saint-Saens wrote five symphonies between the years 1850 and 1886. The cycle began with the Mozart-influenced Symphony in A but as a precocious composer of 17 he wrote his first numbered symphony, a work much admired by Berlioz and Gounod. He progressed to his most popular piece in the genre, the ground-breaking Symphony No. 3 with its inclusion of organ and piano. This critically admired cycle includes a sequence of atmospheric and dramatic symphonic poems, including Phaeton and the ever-popular Danse macabre.
REVIEWS:
The standard reference versions for these works have been Martinon’s EMI (now Warner) recordings, but Soustrot’s are different enough to justify duplication. In the First Symphony, particularly, Soustrot adopts a very slow, dreamy tempo for the Adagio, but it works very well, particularly in contrast to the bold and brassy finale which follows without a break. Soustrot correctly highlights the adventurous writing for the harps, but never tastelessly, and some listeners may feel that the interpretation finds additional expressive depth in music often denigrated as merely sentimental. It’s good to hear it played with no apologies.
In the Second Symphony Soustrot comes closer to Martinon in terms of timing, but there’s no denying the extra clarity and nimbleness of the Malmö ensemble as compared to the old French National Radio and Television Orchestra for EMI. Soustrot’s exciting and rhythmically sharp reading of Phaéton makes a welcome bonus. This is unquestionably one of the best recordings of the piece, with an especially effective thunderbolt as Zeus hurls the hapless chariot (of the sun) driver from his seat. Attractively natural sonics round out a very promising start to this new series.
– ClassicsToday.com (David Hurwitz; in an earlier review of the CD release of Symphonies 1 & 2)
Marc Soustrot has some very good ideas about how the music should go. Soustrot prefers urgency even at the expense of some occasionally blurred articulation. The very slow tempo for the introduction followed by that agitated allegro highlights the broad range of contrasts typical of the performance more generally. The organ, excellently played by Carl Adam Landström, is very well balanced by the Naxos engineers. All told, this is a very fine performance of the Thrid.
– ClassicsToday.com (David Hurwitz; in an earlier review of the CD release of Symphony No. 3)
Camille Saint-Saens: Complete Concertos (New Talents Edition
Saint-Saens: Sinfonische Dichtungen
On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the death of the important French composer Camille Saint-Saëns, the Basel Symphony Orchestra under its conductor Ivor Bolton had set itself the goal of giving its audience an insight into the composer's well-known and lesser-known symphonic works. In addition to the symphonies and various concertos, the orchestra has explicitly focused on the symphonic poems of the composer of the "Carnival of the Animals". For the first time, these works as well as the well-known "Bacchanale" from the opera "Samson et Dalila" have been recorded according to Hugh Macdonalds' new critical edition published by Bärenreiter. Camille Saint-Saëns - who also performed several times at the Stadtcasino Basel - was very old when he died in 1921 at the age of 86. He had an eventful life behind him. He lost his father when he was still a baby. He entered the world of music as a child prodigy. Later, as an adult, his two young sons die. After the death of his mother shortly afterwards, he dissolves his flat in Paris, gives away and sells his furniture and goes into hiding. He spends fifteen years in a travel fever in ship cabins and train compartments. He travels from North Africa to China, from Russia to America - and composes. With the four works he composed between 1872 and 1877, "Le Rouet d'Omphale", "Phaéton", "Danse macabre" and "La Jeunesse d'Hercule", Camille Saint-Saëns placed himself firmly in the tradition of Hector Berlioz, who had ushered in a new era in France with his "Symphonie fantastique", premiered in 1830, as well as the symphonic poems of Franz Liszt, who had established the genre in Germany. During Saint-Saëns' lifetime, his four "Poèmes symphoniques" became repertoire works that were heard around the world, but only the "Danse macabre" has remained in the concert programme to this day. This work with its pictorial depiction of a witches' sabbath - though clearly ironically broken - was a true scandalous piece at the time of its creation, not so far removed from Stravinsky's Sacre in this respect. His own mother fainted with indignation at the premiere and the hall audience went wild. In Germany, Carl Reinecke refused to perform the work because he considered the pictorial representation of skeletons by means of a xylophone immoral. Compared to the "Danse macabre", "Phaéton" is certainly more moderate. It describes Phaéton's high-spirited ride on Helios' sun chariot, which of course - danger of crashing! - does not end well. A rousing and concise orchestral piece. The critical first editions, which have just been published by Bärenreiter within the "Œuvres complètes instrumentales", offer the opportunity for new interpretations of these works on a reliable source basis. About the orchestra: the Süddeutsche Zeitung describes it perfectly: "You only have to experience the Basel Symphony Orchestra with its principal conductor Ivor Bolton once to know what this fabulous orchestra is capable of." Whether in its own concert series, at the Stadtcasino Basel or in guest performances at home and abroad, the innovative ensemble repeatedly confirms its high level of sound culture. The Briton Ivor Bolton has been the orchestra's principal conductor since the 2016/2017 season. Conductors with whom the Basel Symphony Orchestra has been closely associated include personalities such as Johannes Brahms, Felix Weingartner, Gustav Mahler, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Gary Bertini, Walter Weller, Armin Jordan, Horst Stein, Otto Klemperer, Nello Santi, Pierre Boulez, Mario Venzago and Dennis Russell Davies.
Saint-Saëns, Piazzolla, Marsalis et al: Close Encounters / Lopes, Lutsyk, Gringolts Quartet
This album is the fulfilment of a dream and the result of over five years of planning, developing and preparing a unique collaborative project between composers, arrangers and musicians – 6 pieces, 6 composers, 4 premieres – What inspired me to record this album was the fascinating way the sound of the bassoon blends with the string quartet. My choice of repertoire was based on pure pleasure – I chose works that I love to play, some original, others arranged, and asked composers I admire so much to write for this combination.
In two of the works I added the double bass, which enriches them very much and helps immensely to encounter different sound worlds. To create this with musicians of this calibre was simply wonderful. Their interest, curiosity and flexibility together with the skill, calm and experience of our sound engineer, Andreas Werner, and the fact that we were able to record in the legendary Radiostudio in Zurich, makes me feel so privileged. I couldn't be happier with the result which I hope you too will enjoy!
Saint-Saens: Complete Concertos (New Talents Edition #1)
Saint-Saens: Piano Concertos Nos. 2 & 4
Saint-Saëns, Herzog: Works for Violin and Orchestra / Jinjoo Cho, Herzog, Ensemble Appassionato
Saint-Saëns: Piano Concerto No. 2 / Stembolskaya
Saint-Saens: Complete Sonatas
Saint-Saëns: Sonatas for Violin & Piano / Zilliacus, Hadland
Saint-Saëns's chamber music broke new ground in France at a time when public taste tended to favour opera and opéra-comique. His first Sonata for violin and piano, one of the earliest composed in France, is a masterpiece of boundless beauty. Its emotional impact and its highly poetic content are served by the composer’s perfect mastery of formal architecture. It has also been proposed as the model for the ‘Vinteuil Sonata’ which runs through Marcel Proust's novel cycle ‘In Search of Lost Time’. The second Sonata, composed in Egypt, is very different from its predecessor: more serious, classical, and intimate. While the writing is more melodic, the composer prophesied that the sonata would not be understood “until the eighth hearing”. These two masterpieces are complemented by the Fantaisie for violin and harp, a virtuoso work in which the use of the harp rather than the piano produced a delicate, refined, even magical sound reminiscent at times of Fauré and Debussy, and by the charming Berceuse, one of Saint-Saëns’ best-known miniatures. Originally for violin and piano, it is performed here in an arrangement for violin and harp that, again, emphasizes the subtleties of Saint-Saëns’ writing.
Camille Saint-Saens: L'Ancetre
Saint-Saëns: Cello Sonatas / Favalessa, Semeraro
Prior to the turn of the 20th century, Camille Saint-Saëns enriched the cello repertoire with two important compositions: his Cello Concerto No.1 in A minor (Op.33 ) and his Cello Sonata No.1 in C minor (Op.32). The first Cello Sonata was composed in the autumn of 1872, and its first public performance – with J. Reuschel on cello and the composer at the piano – was given on 26 March 1873 at the Salle Érard in Paris. The work is divided into three movements: the first and third have a tragic character, while the second offers an oasis of quiet serenity. The work opens with a dramatic Allegro in sonata form. The second movement stems from an organ improvisation performed by Saint-Saëns at Saint-Augustin. The final movement takes up the tumultuous and agitated character of the first and ends in an unrelenting race. Some 30 years separate the Cello Sonata No.2 in F (Op.123) from its predecessor. The fruit of laborious work, it was completed in early 1905. The Sonata is structured in four movements, the first in sonata form with contrasting heroic and lyrical characters throughout. The second movement is a Scherzo with eight variations, each with its own identity while maintaining a link to the theme, one of them in the form of a fugue. The third movement is, in Saint-Saëns’ words, ‘a romance that will delight cellists’, and he wrote of its concluding section, ‘the Adagio will bring tears to sensitive souls’. The sonata ends with a playful, light Rondo in which both piano and cello engage in technical virtuosity and imitative games.
Saint-Saëns: Phryné / Rougier, Valiquette, Dubois, Niquet, Rouen Opera Orchestra
To mark the centenary of the death of Camille Saint-Saëns, the Palazzetto Bru Zane offers a chance to discover one of his most performed and admired operas in his lifetime, presented here in a rare version. Completed in 1893 and premiered the same year at the Opéra-Comique, the piece amusingly recounts the love affair between Nicias and Phryné, who dupes the old archon Dicephilus in order to avenge his cruelty. Its witty melodies and delightful orchestration made the opera an immediate success in Paris and then throughout France. It was enriched with recitatives composed by André Messager in 1896 to promote its career in theatres abroad.
Hervé Niquet’s dashing interpretation brings out to the full the qualities of the Orchestre de l’Opéra de Rouen Normandie and the Chœur du Concert Spirituel, thus providing a sparkling backdrop for the virtuosic soprano voice of Florie Valiquette, the refined lyricism of the tenor Cyrille Dubois and the vocal authority of Thomas Dolié’s baritone.
REVIEWS:
Undoubtedly, Saint-Saëns’ lesser-known operas have featured heavily in Bru Zane’s CD-book series with releases of La princesse jaune, Le Timbre d’argent, Proserpine, Les Barbares and his Cantatas of the Prix de Rome. Bru Zane’s interest in neglected Saint-Saëns opera continues with this new release of Phryné, an hour-long opéra-comique in two acts. This is the world premiere recording of the André Messager version of 1896.
Bru Zane has assembled a talented cast of mainly first-language French speakers. Young soprano Florie Valiquette has had success as Barberine (Le nozze di Figaro), Madeleine/Madame de Latour (Le Postillon de Lonjumeau) and Gabrielle (La Vie Parisienne) this year. She sings the eponymous role here with fresh voice and no shortage of enthusiasm. In Phryné’s Act Two air Un soir, j’errais sur le rivage where she implores Aphrodite the goddess of love to safeguard her love for Nicias, she characterises well and is in splendid voice, light and attractive with a pleasing tenderness and purity.
Hervé Niquet conducts the Orchestre de l'Opéra de Rouen Normandie and the combination is a successful one. I’ve not encountered this Rouen orchestra too often; its playing has commitment, energy and, when required, a pleasing level of sensitivity. The well trained Choeur du Concert Spirituel makes a valuable contribution.
This world premiere recording was satisfyingly recorded in 2021 under studio conditions in the Opéra de Rouen Normandie. A high-end product, Bru Zane’s CD-book series of bilingual editions in French and English maintains its high standards with Phryné and contains a synopsis, five helpful essays and, most importantly the full libretto.
-- MusicWeb International
