Centenary edition Episode 2 – Concertante Music
Piano Concertos 1 -5
Caprice-valse Wedding Cake*
Africa*
Rhapsodie d’Auvergne*
Allegro Apassionato in C sharp minor*
Violin Concertos 1 – 3
Romances in C & D flat Major**
Morceau de concert in G**
Caprice Andalou**
Prelude to Le Déluge**
La Muse et le poète (violin, cello)
Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso**
Havanaise**
Valse-Caprice**
Odelette (flute)
Tarantelle (flute & clarinet)
Romance in D flat (flute)
Romance in F (horn)
Morceau de concert in G (harp)
Morceau de concert in F (horn)
Cyprès et Lauriers (organ)
Cello Concerto No. 1
Allegro Apassionato in B minor (cello)
* Piano and orchestra
** Violin and orchestra
Jean-Philippe Collard (Piano)
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Andre Previn (Conductor)
Ulf Hoelscher (Violin)
New Philharmonia Orchestra
Pierre Dervaux (Conductor)
Renaud Capuçon (Violin)
Gautier Capuçon (Cello)
Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France
Lionel Bringuier (Conductor)
German Chamber Philharmonic Bremen
Daniel Harding (Conductor)
Clara Novakova (Flute)
Richard Vielle (Clarinet)
Radovan Vlatkovic (Horn)
Marielle Nordman (Harp)
Ensemble de Paris
Jean-Jacques Kantorow (Conductor)
Matthias Eisenberg (Organ)
Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse
Michel Plasson (Conductor)
Mstislav Rostropovich (Cello)
LPO
Carlo Maria Giulini
Paul Tortelier (Cello)
CBSO
Louis Frémaux
CDs 5 – 9 of Saint-Saëns Edition
Warner Classics 0190296746048
34 CDs (not available separately)
Budget price
The Review
This enormous box set is distinguished by the inclusion of the piano concertos in the recordings made in 1985 and ’87 by Collard, Previn and the RPO. It was then and remains the best overview of these fluent and engaging concertos, much more substantial than so many virtuoso vehicles of the time.
The Second concerto is the most heard in concerts these days, with its profound opening Andante, finishing with Beethoven quotations, skittish Scherzo and flamboyant final Presto (slightly undermined by its central section suspiciously like the scales in the pianists’ movement of Carnival of the Animals). Collard and Previn take the slow movements of all the concertos steadily, lifting them out of the light genre that so often clouds perception, although the First concerto does have a lovely breath of Mediterranean sun to it and many of the ideas Saint-Saëns uses, for example in the meditative opening half of the Fourth concerto, have the same melodic simplicity with which Vivaldi put his music together. Their approach produces dividends in the Third concerto, with its deeply felt Andante and big-boned opening movement, almost twice as long as those that follow.
Saint-Saëns’ fascination with the Southern coast of the Mediterranean increased as the years went on (he died in Algiers) and two pieces, the Fifth piano concerto, The Egyptian, and the Africa Fantasy mark it. These are very much a colonial tourist’s view of that coast, with hints of exotic Arabisms but not much more. They give Collard real scope for virtuosity, though, and Africa is suitably breathless. The Auvergne Rhapsody may be more authentic but I always have in my mind that it may really be about Saint-Saëns walking out on his young wife there three years earlier.
The violin concerto performances in the box are more of a problem. Ulf Hoelscher and the NPO are adequate; there’s nothing actually wrong, it’s just that everything could be a little more precise, a bit more integrated and, dare I say it, given with more belief in the music. Hoelscher’s tone lacks charm, too often biting into the strings unpleasantly hard. The orchestral ensemble from 1977 feels under rehearsed. Maybe the New Philharmonia were struggling with the unfamiliar conducting of Dervaux or ran out of time for retakes. Either way the result is competent rather than convincing. The suspicion is that these concertos are sufficiently rare on record for even a company as big as Warners not to have an outstanding set in the back catalogue. It’s a pity because the Third concerto is a particularly lovely work. These are better than nothing but they suggest there is a gap in the market for one of today’s superb soloists to fill.
That there are so many short works lasting under a dozen minutes says a lot about how concert programmes were constructed in the late nineteenth century. There was a strong market for what Beecham always called lollipops; good vehicles for a soloist that did not tax orchestra or audience too much, often played between vocal or purely orchestral items: for the live equivalent of today’s classical light radio. Saint-Saëns was a master at providing these and they are often delightful, if not completely nourishing. Hoelscher is better in these than in the concertos but even here he could have more panache. Pulled out for an individual airing the recordings work reasonably well but played in succession they feel a bit too much like a worthy research project.
The point is proved all too clearly on disc 8 when the recording switches to 2013 and Renaud Capuçon: lovely mellow sound and much better balance between orchestra and soloist. The Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso and the Havanaise are probably the best known of the smaller violin and orchestra works and Capuçon delivers them with relaxed affection, teasing rubato, conjuring subtlety with immaculate bowing. When his brother Gautier joins him for The Muse And The Poet, a substantial work of sixteen minutes, they show perfectly how to blend succulent romanticism with elegant virtuosity.
Disc 9 is devoted mostly to small works pairing different instruments plus the organ with the orchestra. It shows the composer’s facility but also its down side. He had the same problem as Glazunov: brilliant when very young but almost too much so for his own good. Too many of the works glide by without making much impact on the mind. His essential conservatism meant that he rarely pushed musical boundaries and was often content to produce works of adequate competence that tested nobody but the soloist. It was something that he seems to have recognised and led to emotional insecurity that, once he was over forty, he dealt with by being increasingly rude about younger composers and trying to block their progress. He was especially disconcerted by Debussy. In many ways his attitude to his colleagues was analagous to the fury of the French academician painters towards Monet and Pisarro.
The First Cello Concerto is a passionate but relatively brief affair, with only the most perfunctory of slow sections, so it is surprising that there was no room in the box for the more substantial Second concerto, nor for the Suite for cello that Saint-Saëns orchestrated at the end of his life. The First concerto is not exactly a heavyweight so it is surprising too that the version included is by two artists who could never be described as anything but: Rostropovich and Giulini. They do rather sound as if they are trying to invest it with more profundity than is natural. The LPO play with (as their choral director John Alldis used to call it) eyebrows down. The composer might have felt a little disconcerted, if pleased that he was being taken so seriously. In this section of the box only the performances by Collard and the Capuçon brothers can be said to be top recordings, although the others are good without being extraordinary.
SM