Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 22 Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921)
TCHAIKOVSKY’S FIFTH
Camille Saint-Saëns was a significant French composer, organist and pianist during the romantic era, extending into the early twentieth century. A gifted musical prodigy equal to Mozart, he was admitted to the Paris Conservatoire as an organist at the tender age of 13 and his early career was as an organist to a couple of prominent Parisian churches. Saint-Saëns later spent five years as a piano teacher in the École de Musique Classique et Religieuse where, among many students, he taught Gabriel Fauré. In 1865 he left the school and devoted his career to composing and touring as a pianist. In 1904 he had a fascinating opportunity to record several of his piano pieces, including bits of his Second Piano Concerto, for the Gramophone Company of London.
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As a composer, Saint-Saëns is a bit of a contradiction in that he admired the most modern of composers at the time, Richard Wagner and Franz Liszt, yet wrote music decidedly from an 18th century classical approach. Still, his music has all the lyricism and grand beauty that one would expect from a romantic composer.
JANUARY 9 & 10, 2022
Camille Saint-Saëns wrote his second piano concerto in 1868 and dedicated it to Madame de Villers. However, it was inspired by a series of concerts given in Paris by the great Russian pianist Anton Rubenstein. Saint-Saëns had been conducting the orchestra for Rubenstein and, near the end of the series, Rubenstein decided he wanted a try at the podium. Saint-Saëns immediately began work on a concerto and 17 days later he had a piece on which he would be the soloist and Rubenstein the conductor. True to his classical leanings, the orchestra is scored with the traditional woodwind and brass instruments found in most symphonies by Mozart and Haydn. Saint-Saëns shows his admiration of Bach in the introductory fantasia, which eventually gives way into the restless first theme, also played by solo piano. As the middle section gains momentum, the first theme dramatically returns, setting the stage for the cadenza. To finish off the movement, the music comes full circle by bringing back the Bach-like fantasia. Now Saint-Saëns departs from traditional classical forms and has a light-hearted scherzo for a second movement. 68
HILTON HEAD SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
Musically, it is very reminiscent of many of the sections in his Carnival of the Animals! The concerto ends with a wild saltarella, a popular folk dance in central Italy which was also famously used by Mendelssohn in the last movement of his Italian Symphony.
Symphony No. 5 in E minor, Op. 64 Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
In 1888, Benjamin Harrison was elected President of the United States, Maurice Chevalier and Irving Berlin were born, George Eastman perfected the Kodak camera, and the London Financial Times was founded. More importantly, however, was the premier in St. Petersburg of Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony, composed at a time when he was plagued by self-doubts and the feeling that he was at the end of his creative endeavors. Indeed, he wrote to a friend:
“Formerly, I used to give myself up to the labor of composing just as simply and by virtue of the same natural circumstances as causes a fish to swim in the water or a bird to fly in the air. But not now. Now I am like a man who bears a heavy burden, albeit one which he values, and must carry it right to the end, come what may.” Although Tchaikovsky denied that the symphony had any sort of program to it, he did write in his sketch-book for the symphony: “Total submission to Fate – or, what is the same thing, the inscrutable design of Providence.” To be sure, there are many aspects about the symphony that would lend credibility in thinking it represents life’s struggles leading inexorably to the end. The very first melody we hear, used throughout the symphony in all movements, does sound like “fate,” with its somber quality and the slow, downward scale at the end of it. This same tragic “fate” motif is transformed into a triumphant, victorious one in the last movement’s finale as E minor becomes E major. The themes of fate and struggle leading to victory were especially relevant during World War II, when the symphony had possibly its greatest popularity. Most notably, it was performed on the night of the Siege of Leningrad. The Leningrad Radio Orchestra
