Saint-Saëns - Requiem Opus 54

The text of the Catholic Requiem Mass began to be sung to music as far back as the 9th century when Gregorian chant melodies which were monophonic were used.  The earliest surviving polyphonic Requiem is from the 15th century. Early Requiems used various texts until the Council of Trent in the 16th century set the texts that were to be used in the services of the Church.  There is an amount of freedom of choice within the allowed texts to be used in the Requiem, so many of the later Requiems have differing combinations of text.

The dramatic nature of the text has attracted many composers, with some Requiems being more suited to the concert hall than a church. Verdi's Requiem is an example of a highly dramatic setting of the text and has been criticized for being more like an unstaged opera than a Requiem.  In contrast, Saint-Saëns Requiem was intended for use in a church service. He kept the length of the work to a little over 30 minutes, a short time for a Romantic era Requiem.

He wrote the Requiem for Albert Libon, a friend and patron that had died a year earlier. Originally Libon included in his will 100,000 francs to Saint-Saëns with the intent to allow the composer to quit his position as church organist and devote his time to composition with the stipulation that Saint-Saëns compose a Requiem in his honor to be performed a year after his death. Before he died, Libon removed that stipulation. Saint-Saëns received the 100,000 francs upon Libon's death but felt compelled to write a Requiem to honor his friend anyway. He traveled to Switzerland in April of 1878 and while staying in a hotel he wrote the Requiem in a mere eight days. He wrote to his publisher, "Fear not, this Requiem will be very short. I’m not just working hard, I’m working flat out!"

Saint-Saëns wrote a Requiem that is not free of drama, but the drama is more subdued. The writing for orchestra and organ is lyrically powerful, and he has written music for the chorus and soloists that shows his mastery of writing for the voice. A recurring motive in the work is the chromatic 'sighing' that can especially be heard in the fourth movement.  In later life Saint-Saëns turned from a total religious believer to an absolute non-believer, but he respected the tradition of the church and continued to write religious music for the rest of his life.

I. Kyrie
Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord,
and let perpetual light shine upon them.
You shall have praise, O God, in Zion,
and a prayer shall go up for you in Jerusalem.
All flesh shall come before you.
Lord have mercy,
Christ have mercy,
Lord have mercy.

II. Dies irae
This day, this day of wrath
shall consume the world in ashes,
as foretold by David and the Sybil.
What fear there shall be,
when the judge shall come
to weigh everything severely.
The trumpet, casting its wondrous sound
across the graves of all lands,
summons all before the throne.
Death and nature shall be astounded
when mankind arises
to give account before the judge.
The written book shall be brought
in which all is recorded
whereby the world shall be judged.
When the judge takes his seat
all that is concealed shall appear,
nothing shall remain unavenged.
What shall I, a frail man, say then?
To which protector shall I appeal
when even the just man is scarcely safe?

III. Rex tremendae
King of awful majesty,
who freely saves those worthy of salvation,
save me, fount of mercy.
Remember, gentle Jesus,
that I am the reason for your earthly life,
do not cast me out on that day.
Seeking me, you sank down wearily,
you have saved me by enduring the cross:
such travail must not be in vain.
Righteous Judge of vengeance,
award the gift of forgiveness
before the day of reckoning.
I groan, like the sinner that ?I am,
guilt reddens my face:
spare the supplicant, O God.
You, who pardoned Mary
and heeded the thief,
have given me hope as well.
My prayers are unworthy,
but you, who are good, in pity,
do not let me burn in the eternal fire.
Give me a place among the sheep
and separate me from the goats,
let me stand at your right hand.
When the damned are cast away,
and consigned to the searing flames,
call me to be with the blessed.

IV. Oro supplex
Bowed down in supplication I beg you,
my heart as though ground to ashes,
help me in my final hour.
This day of tears
when from the ashes arises
guilty man to be judged:
have mercy upon him, O Lord,
Gentle Lord Jesus,
grant him rest.
Amen.

V. Hostias
We offer to you in praise, O Lord,
sacrifices and prayers:
accept them on behalf of those souls
whom we remember this day:
Lord, make them pass
from death to life,
as once you promised Abraham
and to his seed.

VI. Sanctus
Holy, holy, holy,
Lord God of hosts.
Heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest!

VII. Benedictus
Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.

VIII. Agnus Dei
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the
world, grant them rest.
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the
world, grant them rest.
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the
world, grant them eternal rest.
Amen.

Saint-Saëns - Piano Concerto No. 3 In E-flat Major

Despite Saint-Saëns being somewhat of an innovator early in his career (he introduced the symphonic poem to France), his aesthetic sense also was evident in his habit of composing music in the traditional forms such as the symphony and concerto.  His piano concertos are elegantly written works that make virtuosic demands of the soloist, but always in service to musical expression.  

Saint-Saëns' 5 piano concertos are works that span a 40-year period and the piano parts show how well Saint-Saëns maintained his virtuoso technique over the years. His most popular piano concerto is Number 2 In G Minor, with occasional performances of No. 4 In C Minor and No. 5 In F Major.  Concertos No. 1 and 3 are the least played, with No. 3 being considered by some as his weakest effort out of the five. When the work was premiered in 1869 it was not well received. It is in three movements:

I. Moderato assai -  The soloist begins the movement with quiet arpeggios and after two bars a solo horn plays a fragment of a theme while the piano continues arpeggiating. The fragment is passed through different instruments and combinations as the piano arpeggios grow in volume until the fragment of the theme is taken up by the soloist and becomes the first theme of the sonata form movement. The orchestra repeats part of the theme and a short development section is played along with a different motive. The second theme appears in the solo piano and directly after it Saint-Saëns places a cadenza for the soloist. The development section follows the cadenza, which also has an extended part for the soloist alone.  A flute signals the beginning of the recapitulation. After a coda that has an impressive piano part, the first movement ends in E-flat major.

II. Andante - The second movement key signature is E major, but in the beginning of it Saint-Saëns does some tonal wandering as the strings slowly move towards a theme, perhaps one of the reasons the concerto did not have a successful premiere. After the strings have their say, the piano enters with a magically simple theme in left hand octaves:

The low strings accompany this theme as it slowly wends its way through the section until a variant of the first theme is played by the oboe. The strings and piano have a tender dialog through the rest of the short movement until it leads without a break to the finale.

III. Allegro non troppo - The third movement brings back the home key of E-flat major as the orchestra hints at a theme that after a few measures is brought in by the soloist. This movement is full of pianistic difficulties as the robust theme returns throughout the movement. There is a short fugal section a little over half way through the movement. An exuberant coda brings this fine concerto to a close .

Saint-Saëns - Piano Concerto No. 2 In G Minor

Camille Saint-Saëns composed his second piano concerto in 1868, ten years after writing his first piano concerto. By this time Saint-Saëns had met and worked with many of the leading composers of the time. He had been introduced to Liszt years before and the two became friends.  While Saint-Saëns was professor of piano at a French music school he caused a furor when he upset the usually conservative repertoire offered to students by including works of contemporary composers.

The reputation of musical conservative still follows Saint-Saëns, but that came about later in his long life when he became increasingly curmudgeonly towards Debussy and other younger composers. In his younger days Saint-Saëns was known as an innovator, with the second concerto being a good example.

The second piano concerto was written at the request of another one of Saint-Saëns' composer acquaintances, the Russian pianist and composer Anton Rubinstein, who was in the process of developing his reputation as a conductor. Saint-Saëns wrote the work in three weeks, and the premiere of the concerto happened so soon after completion of the work that Saint-Saëns complained that he had insufficient time to practice the work, as he was the soloist.  The concerto got a mixed reception at the premiere, but it went on to become Saint-Saëns most popular work for piano and orchestra and is still in the repertoire. The concerto is in three movements:

I. Andante sustenuto -  While Saint-Saëns first concerto kept to a classical model of a piano concerto, the second concerto shows its differences immediately as the soloist plays an extended cadenza in the very beginning of the first movement. The piano continues until the orchestra interrupts the cadenza with two loud chords and a short episode that prepares the way for the hearing of the first theme played by the solo piano.  The piano repeats the theme with orchestra accompaniment, after which orchestra and soloist engage in a dramatic dialogue, after which the music becomes more serene as the second theme is presented by piano and orchestra. The second theme expands slowly until it dissolves into a slowly building dramatic section. The piano thunders out octaves and the first theme returns.  The soloist introduces new material in another cadenza until material from the opening of the movement returns in hushed tones. The tension and drama change suddenly as the soloist plays forte, the orchestra repeats the loud chords from the beginning, and orchestra and piano join in as the movement ends.

II. Allegro scherzando - In an extreme example of contrast between movements, the second movement begins with a quiet rhythmic figure on the timpani. The soloist and orchestra take turns in a Mendelssohnian scherzo, with the first theme seeing the soloist playing fleet of finger figures with a light and rhythmic accompaniment. The second theme is first played by orchestra while the piano accompanies. The music remains light and delicate while themes come and go, until the woodwinds and timpani enter into a short dialogue based on the rhythmic motive of the opening. Everything winds down to a quiet ending.

III. Presto - Saint-Saëns returns to G minor for the last movement, a tarantella of great speed and passion. The main theme is repeated between episodes of other material, but as with the previous two movement Saint-Saëns made something different of the form. The tarantella eventually takes over as the piano frantically scrambles towards the end of the work with the orchestra running alongside until the thundering chords of the orchestra and running notes of the piano end the work.

Saint-Saëns - Violin Concerto No. 2 in C Major

The time of publication of compositions doesn't necessarily follow in the chronological order in which they are written. Saint-Saëns' Violin Concerto No. 2 is a case in point. His '1st' concerto was written in 1859, and was published with the opus number of 20. The '2nd' concerto was written a year earlier (1858) but was not published until 1879 and had the opus number of 58.  This is a fairly common occurrence, as the two piano concertos of Chopin were published in the reverse order in which they were written. The same goes for Beethoven's first two piano concertos.  This is of no great import, but it is a curiosity and something to keep in mind if the listener wants to examine how a composer progressed throughout their career by listening to their works in chronological order.

By the time Saint-Saëns composed this concerto he was 23 years old and an accomplished composer having written three symphonies and numerous other works.

The 2nd Violin Concerto is in three movements -
Allegro moderato e maestoso - a tempo piu allegro - The concerto begins with the orchestra quietly presenting an accompaniment for the soloist who enters after two measures. The movement is in sonata form similar to Mendelssohn's violin concerto. The cadenza is not left to the soloist to provide, but is written by Saint-Saëns. Towards the end of the cadenza, the timpani signals the return of the orchestra for the end of the movement.
Andante espressivo - Trombones and harp are added to this movement written in A minor. It begins with a short statement by the orchestra, then the violin enters with the harp accompanying. The violin sings a melancholy song that is lightly punctuated by episodes for the harp and orchestra. The music rises to a passionate climax, after which there is an episode in A major. The music suddenly shifts gears after a short episode for the oboe and segues directly into the finale.
Allegro scherzando quasi allegretto -  The rondo finale brings the concerto to a shimmering close.

Saint-Saëns - Danse Macabre

The Danse Macabre (French for Dance Of Death) became a cultural symbol in late Medieval Europe.  Artists painted scenes of the dead escorting the living to the grave with a final dance of death.  The reality of a sudden and painful death were all too vivid after the horrors of the bubonic plague, the 'Black Death' epidemics of the 14th century.  It is estimated that 40 to 50 percent of the total population of Europe perished in a four-year period.

The notion that death was the fate of all, as stated in the Latin motto that accompanied many of the artworks depicting the Dance of Death, Momento Mori (remember you will die) expresses the sentiment that no matter a person's position in society or station in life, our fate is the same. While the notion of death has been romanticized to a certain degree over the years and even trivialized in cartoons and videos, the Dance of Death was very real to people of earlier times.

Many composers based compositions on the Dance Of Death, most notably Hector Berlioz in his Symphonie Fantastique and Franz Liszt in his Totentanz for piano and orchestra. Both of these composers used the 13th century Latin Hymn Dies Irae in their compositions as does Saint-Saëns.  Saint-Saëns' inspiration for his setting  was a poem written by Henri Cazalis, a French poet that got the idea for the poem from French folk legend:

Zig, zig, zig, Death in cadence, 
 Striking with his heel a tomb, 
 Death at midnight plays a dance-tune, 
 Zig, zig, zig, on his violin. 
 The winter wind blows and the night is dark; 
 Moans are heard in the linden-trees. 
 Through the gloom, white skeletons pass, 
 Running and leaping in their shrouds. 
 Zig, zig, zig, each one is frisking. 
 The bones of the dancers are heard to crack- 
 But hist! of a sudden they quit the round, 
 They push forward, they fly; the cock has crowed.

Saint-Saëns wrote a version for voice and piano using Cazalis' poem in 1872, then wrote the orchestral version in 1874. It begins with the quiet tolling of midnight on the harp. Then Death is heard playing the Devil's Interval,  the  tritone dissonance of classical harmony, a diminished fifth, in this instance an A and an E-flat.  Saint-Saëns instructs the solo violinist to tune his E string down to an E-flat to accomplish this.  Saint-Saëns also uses the xylophone to depict the dancing skeletons. After much cavorting around, the oboe imitates the crowing of a rooster at dawn, the skeletons scurry back to their graves and Death ends his solo on the violin.

Saint-Saëns - Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso

Camille Saint-Saëns was a natural musician, one of those who was born to make and create music. As he said himself, "I produce music the way an apple tree produces apples."  He was a child prodigy, memorized all 32 Beethoven piano sonatas and offered the audience to choose one that he would play from memory as an encore at his debut recital in 1845 when he was ten years old.  Such a feat made him world famous, even in the United States.  He composed his first piano piece at 4 years of age, his first public appearance was as an accompanist for a Beethoven violin sonata when he was 5 years old. He wrote his first symphony at sixteen. But his genius was not limited to music. He knew how to read and write by three years old and had a partial command of Latin by the time he was seven.  His many interests throughout his life included geology, archaeology, botany, and the occult. He was an expert mathematician, wrote on a variety of subjects, and wrote a book of poetry.

Raw genius is perhaps not as rare as we think, but raw genius combined with a capacity to work and train that genius to its full potential perhaps is. Saint-Saëns seems to have had both. That he was a quick study is evident, but he developed his gifts to a remarkable degree through effort and diligence. That he was able to do this with what appeared to the ordinary person with not much effort probably caused him to have as many enemies as friends. Jealousy over someone else's precocity isn't that rare of a thing.  Perhaps that is one issue that has fueled some criticisms of his music over the years, that it is too 'slick', shallow, no depth of feeling, cold.  To be sure,  his music does not plumb the depths like a Bruckner symphony, but why would it? Saint-Saëns is not Bruckner, or Beethoven, or anyone else. His music is well written, has its moments of feeling and passion that is more refined, and even subdued. But a point can be made with understatement as well as (and sometimes better) than overstatement.  It pretty much boils down to what the listener likes and 'gets' out of the music.

Saint-Saëns wrote the Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso for Violin and Orchestra  for the virtuoso violinist Pablo de Sarasate in 1863.  The work is fitting for a virtuoso, and Saint-Saëns shows that he was not only a master of orchestration (the craft of using instruments in varying combinations) but also of instrumentation ( the craft of using a particular instruments tone, pitch and dynamic range, technical possibilities, correct notation for the instrument). In this piece as well as his others for violin and orchestra, as well as the first Cello Concerto he shows his complete command and knowledge of what is possible on strings. For someone who did not play the violin, his artistic and practical knowledge of the instrument was amazing.

The rhythm and thematic material of the Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso  shows that Saint-Saëns shared with his fellow french composers a fascination with Spanish music. The work is a lyrical showpiece for the violin, with some pyrotechnics thrown in for good measure, especially near the end when the violin plays the accompaniment to the theme heard in the oboe.  For Saint-Saëns,  virtuosity could be a virtue as much as the music, but it must always contribute to the musical whole.

Saint-Saëns - Cello Concerto No. 1

Camille Saint-Saëns lived a long life,  (1835 - 1921) long enough to grow from his early years as a musical innovator to a musical conservative. His First Cello concerto was written in 1872 when he was still an innovator that took his lead from the 'modern' composers Liszt and Wagner.

The concerto is written in cyclic form in one continuous movement, but it has three main sections. Unlike other concertos, this one does not have an orchestral exposition before  the entrance of the soloist. Instead, there is one loud chord from the orchestra, then the cello is heard. Throughout the first section, themes are heard in the orchestra, the soloist, sometimes played against each other, sometimes played with each other. The first section is in sonata form sort of, but a rather loose sonata form with very little development of the themes. The first section segues into the second section. The second section is short and in the tempo of a minuet that segues into the third section which recapitulates some of the themes from the first section and then introduces new material before the ending.

The Cello Concerto No. 1 is very technically demanding for the soloist. Saint-Saëns exploits the extreme ranges of the instrument but all the while keeps the balance between soloist and orchestra such that the cello can always be heard. It is a virtuoso work written by a virtuoso composer for a virtuoso cellist, and one of the few cello concertos that have managed to remain in the repertoire.

Clara Rockmore/Saint Saens - The Swan

Clara Rockmore (1911 - 1998) was a virtuoso player of the theremin, an electronic instrument. The theremin was invented and named by a Russian, Leon Theremin. The instrument was patented in 1928 and consists of two antennas connected to oscillators, a horizontal antenna used to control volume and a vertical antenna used to control pitch. The closer or farther away a hand was placed to these antenna determined the pitch and volume.  The antennas are not actually touched at all.  The widest use of the theremin has been for science fiction movies of the 1950's and 1960's, but there has been a resurgence of the instrument in rock music and avant garde music.

Clara Rockmore was a child prodigy on the violin and began studying at the St. Petersburg conservatory  at the age of five.  But due to malnutrition, she developed serious bone problems that prevented her from continuing her studies and playing the violin.
She discovered the theremin and worked with the inventor to make it a more precise instrument.  She developed an entire technique for the instrument, using her fingers to 'finger' the notes in the air.

Camille Saint-Saëns (1835 - 1921) was a French composer. he composed Carnival Of The Animals, a suite of pieces originally for a chamber group of instruments (a full orchestra version also exists) that musically depicts an assortment of creatures. It was composed in 1886 but Saint Saëns thought it might be too trivial and hurt his reputation as a serious composer.  He allowed only one of the vignettes to be published in his lifetime, The Swan.  The entire collection was published in 1922 after his death and remains a very popular composition.  The Swan is a melancholy song originally written for cello that depicts the legend that when a swan dies  it sings its sweetest song.  Clara Rockmore shows that the theremin can be an instrument of great expression and nuance, but it's a mystery to me how in the world she coaxes such sweet, ethereal music out if thin air.  It's magical.

Saint Saëns The Swan played by Clara Rockmore