Saint-Saëns: Piano Concertos 1-5 | Camille Saint-Saens, Charles Dutoit, ...

Saint-Saëns: Piano Concertos 1-5 | Camille Saint-Saens, Charles Dutoit, ... | Emotion Provoking

classical music:

Saint-Saëns: Piano...

	Saint-Saëns: Piano Concertos 1-5 Camille Saint-Saens, Charles Dutoit, ... Decca, 1995 average customer review:based on 16 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

There is a lot of really enjoyable music here. I remember organizing a performance of the Fifth Piano Concerto (subtitled "The Egyptian") when I was repertoire committee chairman for a local community orchestra. We found it not only very playable for all of us amateurs in the orchestra, but it simply blew the audience away. It's a real find. Both the Second and Fourth concertos have been popular favorites for more than a century, but they seemed to have vanished sight in the past couple of decades. It was our loss, but no more. And the Fifth Piano Concerto, even when played by amateurs, can blow an audience away. At two discs for the price of one, these fine performances offer listeners a great chance to know this charming and vivacious music at little or no risk at all. So why hesitate? --David Hurwitz

for more information click here

Master impressionist, masterfully rendered

Camille Saint-Saens was the master, if not the father, of french classical music; a friend to Liszt, Faure (formerly a pupil) and Berlioz (no small honor, to say the least). He was a prodigy and a genius. He began playing piano at 2, and wrote his first piece at 4. He was reading and writing by the age of 3 and was fluent in Latin by the age of 7. His first published composition, Symphony No. 1, was completed by the time he was 16. He also excelled at math and the sciences. He was truly a man to be marveled at and appreciated.
But what do you get when you listen to his 1st Piano Concerto? Wagner! The opening of the piece is so heavily influenced by Wagner that it is hard to believe that it was composed by someone other than Wagner. But, Richard Wagner was someone that Saint-Saens championed in France for many years as an instructor, compser, conductor and performer; a pursuit that would not save him later in life when his anti-Nazi retoric landed him in the 'hot seat' with the French and German governments; but as always, I digress.
These Concerti are wonderful. The treatment by pianist Pascal Roge and London's 3 great Orchestras (London Philharmonic, Philharmonia, Royal Philharmonic) all conducted by Charles Dutoit, is wonderful. Each piece is thoughtfully and beautifully played with a passion that can be felt through the speakers/headphones.
PC#1 opens with a Wagnerian horn solo that fades to light strings, a soft piano melody, and more strings before breaking into the main theme of the piece. The horn is prevalent throughout, as are the strings, but the work on the piano is superb. The second movement is very dark and falls slightly short of eerie; low, slow cellos backdropped by plucking violins lead to a soft and slow piano melody that is beautiful and very satisfying. Again, the strings play a large part in the piece while the theme from the opening movement continues. The third movement mixes all of the themes from the horns, the piano and the strings in a uplifting and inspiring finale.
PC#2 opens with a lengthy piano solos that fades just before the orchestra booms to life and queitly fades back to the piano. The second movement is light and airy with joyful strings and lighthearted piano work. The third movement is quick, somewhat dominated by piano.
PC#3 opens with a glimpse of future offerings by Saint-Saens. The piano work is very indicative of (one of my all time favorite pieces) The Aquarium. The second movement is heavily influenced by strings before a dark, deep theme on the piano enters to counteract the lighter fare offered by the strings. The third movement is a bit odd; it opens briefly with strings, scrambles to piano and then weaves the two in a strange sort of give and take that results in the returning main theme, played on strings and backed by horns and the piano.
PC#4 opens softly with strings and piano and the two play back and forth in a serenade that is quite lovely. The shift to the second movement goes unnoticed as the piece was actually written as 2 movements with the opening (allegro-moderato) and the (technical) 2nd (andante) are joined and play seamlessly. The final movement moves much quicker and lifts the spirits, playing the original theme much quicker, before returning to a slower interlude that eventually builds back to a large crescendo in which the piano leads the orchestra to a large finish.
PC#5 is known as "The Egyptian" because Saint-Saens composed it on vacation in Egypt. The piece was written for his jubilee (celebrating the 50th anniversary of his premiere in 1846). The title is misleading as this composition draws on Saint-Saens WORLD travels and not just his winter vacation spot in Luxor, Egypt. The entire piece is light-hearted and follows the typical Saint-Saens interplay of strings and piano, with added moments of silence that seem to make the piece more exciting (IMO). The second movement (andante) is surprisingly intense for an andante; opening with a clash of cymbals and a large piano solo before settling in to its theme and calmly filling the bill of a true andante. The final movement moves quickly on the piano with minimal orchestration at first. When the orchestra does come in, it is definitely the support in this movement as the piano is showcased in a virtuoso style run of the keys and several (I assume as I don't play the piano) difficult chord progressions. The finale is a wonderful mix of piano, strings and woodwinds that is both breathtaking and fulfilling.

Saint-Saens led a sad life with many difficulties (2 children died within six months of each other, a seperation from his wife, depression, disagreements and cutting remarks to and from contemporaries) but his music is still so inspiring and amazingly uneffected.

The recordings are beautiful and the perforances grand. The only complaint that I could have is that the 3rd Concerto is split betwen disc 1 and disc 2 which tends to break the feel of the piece as a whole when you wait for the CD player to advance to another disc. But this is a minor issue and, due to the quality of the recording, well worth over-looking.

Definitely buy this!

for more information click here

Emotion Provoking

I know that a lot of reviewers and musical "experts" have a problem with Saint Saens, evidently because emotions are absent from his pieces. Do people, though, consider Hayden's music or Mozart's music chocked full of emotion? Not in my opinion. Not only that, but a lot of these older composers--all their music sounds the same because they wrote forty to one hundred symphonies or some large number to make a LIVING, not to EXPRESS themselves.

Anyway, I can see most people that reviewed these CDs hold either St. Saens or the conductor and orchestra's performance in high regard. I think whether or not Saens put loads of emotion into his pieces is not the point; the point is that it evokes emotion in the listener. The two that stand out in my mind now are two and four, though all of them are interesting. And every time I listen to a concerto, I feel strong emotions--grief, sadness, pity. Sure, those are all sad feelings, but they are all a part of the human, part of existence.

So, to keep myself from going too far off, these are great CDs and great concertos and a great performance of them. However technical, however lacking in depth and perspective, they are wonderous to listen to, and, most importantly, evoke emotions of the listener. Saens accomplished that while being technical, and I can't say that for all the works I've listened to.

for more information click here

Sublime

I bought this collection randomly, having never heard any of Saint-Saens's music. Now four years later, I have heard some of these concerti performed live several times, and I've listened to recordings of these pieces from both big names (Rubinstein, Richter, et. al) and less popular pianists (Emil Gilels, Stephen Hough, Idil Biret..), and I have to say, those guys have nothing on Roge/Dutoit. These recordings have a certain undefinable energy to them that everyone else seems to lack; it's like they're at home, completely comfortable in this music, playing the way Saint-Saens would have wanted them to. I often listen to music in the background while working, and nothing can compare to this recording's ability to pull itself into the foreground. This is some of the most beautiful classical music, played perfectly.

for more information click here

Wonderful

This is one of my favorite CD's. I have it for my car and my home.

Saint-Saens: Piano Concertos