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SaleSaint-Saens: Music For Wind Ensemble / Markl, Royal Air Force College Band
Naxos · Feb 2021CD$19.99$9.99 -
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Saint-Saens: Organ Symphony; Danse Macabre; Le Carnaval des Animaux / Ormandy
Sony Masterworks · Aug 2015CD$11.98 -
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Saint-Saëns: Piano Works, Paraphrases & Transcriptions, Vol. 2 / Gray
Divine Art · Jan 2022CD$26.99 -
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Neeme Jarvi Conducts Saint-Saens / Jarvi, Royal Scottish National Orchestra
Chandos · Jun 2012SACD$21.99
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.
The Beecham Collection - Saint-Saens: Samson et Dalila, Op.
Saint-saens: Samson Et Dalila
Saint-Saens: Music For Wind Ensemble / Markl, Royal Air Force College Band
Camille Saint-Saens was involved in every aspect of French music during his long lifetime, and his frequent travels led to a fascinating mixture of Western music with Moorish and African elements in works such as Orient et Occident and the Suite algérienne. Saint-Saëns wrote few works for winds, but the grand biblical themes of Samson et Dalila, patriotic military traditions and the dignity of a British coronation all lend themselves perfectly to arrangement. In The Carnival of the Animals, the roaring lions are superbly evocative; while his perspectives on English and Scottish dances in ballet movements from Henry VIII are brilliantly imaginative.
Saint-Saens: Organ Symphony; Danse Macabre; Le Carnaval des Animaux / Ormandy
First, this is one of the great “Organ” Symphonies, not perhaps quite as exciting as Munch, but awfully close, with amazingly fine playing from the Philadelphians and astonishingly good sonics for the period (1962). E. Power Biggs is the excellent soloist, offering a rendition of the organ part that’s unusually well articulated rhythmically. Consider the opening of the finale: bold and quite striking in its firmly phrased, grand reprise of the symphony’s motto theme (first sound sample). Ormandy never matched this performance, and he re-recorded this symphony at least twice.
The symphony may be fine, but it’s the couplings that really close the deal. The Marche militaire française has plenty of swagger, and these versions of the Bacchanale from Samson et Dalila and the Danse macabre are simply the best available. Ormandy does a little light restoring of the former, and it matters not a bit–this performance just drips sex and couldn’t be more wildly uninhibited (second sound sample). As for the Danse, just listen to those Philadelphia violins sing out the main theme (third sound sample). It doesn’t get any better than that.
The Carnival of the Animals is no mere make-weight bonus. Heard in its chamber scoring, the performers make an impressive list: Philippe Entremont and Gaby Casadesus on pianos, Régis Pasquier and Yan-Pascal Tortelier on violins, Gérard Caussé on viola, and no less than the young Yo-Yo Ma on cello. Taken together, you have a perfect disc of Saint-Saëns favorites in performances as good or better than any available. And it’s all offered at budget price. Pure gold.
– ClassicsToday (David Hurwitz)
Saint-Saëns: Piano Works, Paraphrases & Transcriptions, Vol. 2 / Gray
Neeme Jarvi Conducts Saint-Saens / Jarvi, Royal Scottish National Orchestra
SAINT-SAËNS Samson et Dalila: Bacchanale. Le Rouet d’Omphale. Phaëton. Danse macabre. La Jeunesse d’Hercule. Suite algérienne: Marche militaire française. La Princesse jaune: Overture. Une nuit à Lisbonne. Spartacus. Marche du couronnement • Neeme Järvi, cond; Royal Scottish Nat’l O • CHANDOS 5104 (SACD: 77:40)
Here in spectacular multichannel surround sound is a brand-new recording of all four Saint-Saëns tone poems plus a stewpot of shorter orchestral works, some of them popular favorites, others, less widely known.
Over the course of five years, between 1872 and 1877, Saint-Saëns composed four tone poems, three of them drawn from Greek mythology: Le Rouet d’Omphale, Phaëton , and La Jeunesse d’Hercule . The fourth, though third in order of composition, and most famous is Danse macabre , a romantic horror that trades Greek gods for gamboling ghouls.
Omphale’s Spinning Wheel is often said to be the very first French tone poem, though note author Roger Nichols points out that Franck beat Saint-Saëns to the punch by almost a quarter of a century with his symphonic poem Ce qu’on entend sur la montagne of 1848. According to Saint-Saëns’s own preface to the score, the subject of the story is feminine seduction and the triumphant struggle of weakness against strength. To atone for a murder Hercules is ordered by the goddess Hera to serve as a slave to the Lydian Queen, Omphale. Nichols spares the reader the more indelicate description of the emasculated and feminized Hercules kneeling and spinning at the Queen’s feet clad in women’s clothing. In light of Saint-Saëns’s fetish for hosting lavish parties dressed in drag, one has to wonder if the legend of Hercules and Omphale didn’t hold some special fascination for him.
Phaëton , Saint-Saëns’s second tone poem, flirts with the subject of father-son relationships and the sometimes tragic consequences that result when the boy grows old enough to challenge the paternal authority figure. Phaëton , son of Helios the sun god, seeks to prove his manhood by piloting the sun chariot across the heavens. So, in effect, he takes the family Ford out for a spin. But he’s not yet the man he thinks he is. Losing control of the chariot’s horses, he draws the sun too close to the earth. To prevent the solar express from crashing and wreaking further catastrophe, Zeus strikes it with a thunderbolt, incinerating the vehicle and killing Phaëton in the process. A sidebar to the story is that the chariot’s near-miss trajectory across the Sahara scorched the land and explains why the Ethiopians are black.
Next we have Saint-Saëns’s answer to Berlioz’s witches, Mussorgsky’s demons, and Liszt’s diableries, the Danse macabre . But leave it to Saint-Saëns to paint his portrait of the dancing dead, to paraphrase Ogden Nash’s verse, as skeletons in the museum hall gathering at midnight for a ball. The scordatura-tuned violin, xylophone, contorted Dies irae , and android-like rhythmic repetitions caused quite a stir, prompting Debussy, one of Saint-Saëns’s most outspoken critics, to declare years later that the piece gave him hope that Saint-Saëns was a very great composer after all.
The three foregoing tone poems are among Saint-Saëns’s more frequently heard and recorded works and, in fact, a number of recordings, some more recent than others, have included two of them in one combination or another on the same disc. Less often does one find all three, and only one other recording I’m familiar with—a composite Saint-Saëns collection assembled from one or more other releases featuring Charles Dutoit leading the Philharmonia and Royal Philharmonic orchestras—includes the composer’s fourth and final tone poem as well. Having stripped Hercules of his manhood in Omphale’s Spinning Wheel , Saint-Saëns rehabilitates him in La Jeunesse d’Hercule . Both dramatically and musically, the work is the weakest of the four, which no doubt explains its poor showing in the listings. The story, if it can be called that, involves no action but is rather a depiction of the young hero’s internal philosophical struggle in choosing between a life of pleasure-seeking and a life of virtue. He chooses the latter. It has been noted that the Lisztian tone poem model was a strong influence on Saint-Saëns’s score.
The remaining pieces that fill out the disc are, in some cases quite well known, like the Bacchanal from the composer’s opera Samson et Dalila and the Marche militaire française , which comes from the Suite algérienne . Other pieces are not well known at all but are hardly insubstantial. The Spartacus overture, for example, is a 13-minute score that was written in 1863 but remained unpublished until 1900. It’s a stand-alone grand concert overture that contains some of Saint-Saëns’s most dramatically urgent music.
On a trip to Portugal in 1880, Saint-Saëns dashed off a one-act comic opera with a title that would no doubt offend today’s politically correct sensibilities, La Princesse jaune , about a Japanese princess transplanted through opera magic to the Netherlands. The Lisbon audience apparently loved it, and back in Paris the Opéra-Comique gave four performances of it before the curtain came down on it for good. I note a single recording of the work listed by ArkivMusic, a 1996 live performance from Lugano. Heard here is the six-minute overture to the opera, which provides a taste of what Saint-Saëns must have thought Japanese music sounded like. Don’t expect Puccini.
During the same visit that produced La Princesse jaune , Saint-Saëns scribbled out the three-and-a-half-minute musical watercolor Une nuit à Lisbonne , which he dedicated to Portuguese King Luiz.
The story behind the Marche du couronnement put me in mind of Thomas Beecham’s plaint about British orchestras employing so many third-rate conductors when there were so many second-rate English ones to choose from. Which raises the question, why would the Brits choose a French composer, Saint-Saëns, to write a march for the coronation of Edward VII? Apparently, they didn’t. Saint-Saëns took it entirely upon himself to compose the piece, which, according to the program note, caused a flurry of diplomatic activity at the ambassadorial level between the two countries. For the march, Saint-Saëns borrowed a tune from his opera Henry VIII . If you shouldn’t expect Puccini in Saint-Saëns’s La Princesse jaune , don’t expect Elgar in his Coronation March.
This is mainly a fun disc, but a useful one as well in gathering together all four of Saint-Saëns’s tone poems, plus a generous selection of some of his less familiar orchestral works. It’s also distinguished by outstanding playing from the Royal Scottish National Orchestra brilliantly led by veteran conductor Neeme Järvi, and as an added bonus, it’s recorded in stunning multichannel sound. Enthusiastically recommended.
FANFARE: Jerry Dubins
