The young Camille Saint-Saëns was not afraid of the great shadow of Beethoven.
At the age of seventeen in 1853, a quarter of a century after Beethoven's death, he composed the Symphony op. 2 in E flat major, the key of “Eroica”, and it is precisely the intellectual chutzpah that captivates you.
Well-planned, heroic themes combine with compositional mastery.
We encounter a wondrous balance between high and low instruments, between winds and strings.
A deeply felt clarinet cantilena blossoms in the Adagio, reminding one of Weber and Berlioz's predilection for this instrument. Harps are added discreetly. It is less of a melody to be humming than a melodic stream embedded in diverse harmonies that flows through the various groups of instruments. The concert organizer of the premiere stated that the composer wanted to remain anonymous and was German. It was well received and after the puzzle was solved, Charles Gounod reminded "dear Camille" of his obligation to become a great master.
On the 100th anniversary of Saint-Saëns' death on December 16, several respectable recordings of this youthful work are available, for example with the Malmö Symphony Orchestra, which with its musical director Marc Soustrot has recorded a complete edition of all symphonies and several tone poems (Naxos) or with the South Westphalia Philharmonic under Nabil Shehata (alpha classics / outhere).
It is also included in the wonder cube from Warner Classics, a Saint Saëns edition with 35 CDs;
In 1974 Jean Martinon with the French Radio Orchestra took the tempos more quickly than his younger colleagues.
Very early recordings of astonishingly good sound quality
The concerts for orchestra and solo instruments occupy a special place in Saint-Saëns' oeuvre. He always confessed to studying older music and, like Berlioz before him, said: “I am a classic.” If you take his fourth piano concerto op. 44 in C minor, you hear a form-conscious orchestral part with clear structures in which the Solo piano is inextricably integrated with all its virtuosity. An example of this is a historical recording from 1935 with Alfred Cortot (piano) and the great Alsatian conductor Charles Munch.
Saint-Saëns was an eminent pianist himself.
A complete CD with very early recordings of astonishingly good sound quality between 1904 and 1919 is dedicated to the musician playing the Valse mignonne or the Suite algérienne impressionistically unsentimentally.
The concert music for violin is shaped by Saint-Saëns' friendship with the violinist of the century Sarasate.
He dedicated the Rondo capriccioso and the Violin Concerto in B minor to him.
Jascha Heifetz plays the rondo and the Havanaise with a jazzy drive (Warner) in historical recordings with the London Symphony Orchestra under John Barbirolli (1935/37).
A new, excellently commented recording
During the enthusiasm for Japan in those years, Saint-Saëns and his librettist Gallet conjured up a “Japonerie” on the stage of the Paris Opéra-Comique in 1872, the one-act play “La princesse jaune” (“The saffron-colored princess”): A young European explorer of the Orient raves about it a Japanese woman on his screen.
His girlfriend Léna is jealous of the "cursed image of the sorceress with the elongated eyes, the made-up features, the saffron-colored skin".
With the help of cocaine (also a poetic fashion theme) he hallucinates the longed-for country, but he awakens rudely in reality and in the end wishes Japan the devil.