For some reason, I’ve really been hooked on the Saint-Saëns piano concertos lately. I don’t know why. I’d just been itching to hear them again. I used to have ample opportunities to play them on the air, along with a great many other Romantic concertos by lesser-known composers, but now that I don’t have a regular live air shift, opportunities haven’t been so abundant. It’s even worse for shorter works. Who puts in a CD to listen to a three or even a ten-minute track? It really puts a crimp in my holidays, especially, I can tell you. There’s so much great music I used to share, that I only really ever listened to myself while weaving it into my radio shows.

Anyway, back to Saint-Saëns. I’ve had a double-disc set with me whenever I’ve been in the car for the past few weeks, and it has been a delight to have them in my life again. The Concerto No. 2 is the most performed and recorded, I think, or it was. Sometimes you would see No. 4 (often coupled with 2). And No. 5 gets a boost, no doubt because it’s got a nickname (the “Egyptian,” written while the composer was on a trip to North Africa, in the finale riffing on some exotic scales). But I think the only ones I have encountered in concert are 2 and 5. Why are they not performed more often?

Some enterprising music director would do well to perhaps swap out the overexposed – and, in my opinion, much weaker – Chopin concertos. For that matter, for as fine as they are, the Ravel concertos could probably use a rest. And what’s the deal with Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 2? For as much as I admire Liszt, do we really need to hear it so often? No. 1 is so much better. Rachmaninoff? Forget about it. I love the concertos, as do audiences everywhere, but give somebody else a chance already.

After all, Saint-Saëns has already proved himself. His “Organ” Symphony is played everywhere and for good reason: it elicits ecstatic responses from listeners. But “Carnival of the Animals?” A fun piece, well-crafted, and full of sly wit, but again, how many times do we have to hear it, at the expense of all the other fun, well-crafted, and slyly witty pieces he composed? There are an awful lot of them that we never, ever hear, especially in concert.

Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) should require no lance-breaking from me. A child prodigy who lived to a venerable age, there is not one phase of his maturity (which started early) that does not reward exploration.

Perhaps the reason the concertos popped into my head was because of the proximity of the Bard Music Festival. I’ve been to at least some of 13 of the last 18 festivals. Of course, I can never get enough of Sibelius, Vaughan Williams, Korngold, Martinů, and even Rimsky Korsakov, all given the Bard treatment in recent years. But thinking back, one of my favorite festivals turned out to be the one devoted to Saint-Saëns in 2012. It was just full of revelations and, all around, a really good time. I can’t believe it was 14 years ago!

Anyway, on one of the concerts, Danny Driver, who is a Bard stalwart with an active concert career and a sizable discography (recording for, among other labels, Hyperion), was the soloist on one of the concerts in the “Egyptian” concerto, with Leon Botstein conducting the American Symphony Orchestra. I found the audio posted online. You can hear just how much the audience enjoyed it from their spontaneous cries afterward. I’ll share the link to the last movement below.

Unfortunately, for as seldom as the concertos are performed, we almost never hear Nos. 1 & 3. And they are wonderful. Do they plumb the depths of existence? Of course not. But they are great fun. One is consistently tickled by the level of craftsmanship, the melding in his music of French and German influences, the way he plays with structure, and the seeming effortlessness of the writing. I know I’m flirting with cliché in saying so, but it’s as if he’s stringing pearls. No. 1 is so uplifting and heroic. Somebody bring it back, please!

But of course, these are the assessments of one who also hopes someday to be able to hear the Josef Rheinberger concerto!

The Bard Music Festival, this year devoted to “Mozart and His World,” will conclude this afternoon at Bard College at 3:00 EDT with a complete semi-staged performance of “The Abduction from the Seraglio.” The program will also be available for livestreaming. You’ll find more information at the link!

https://fishercenter.bard.edu/what-we-do/bard-music-festival/

Danny Driver plays Saint-Saëns at Bard

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPqpIHHAmrs&list=RDmPqpIHHAmrs&start_radio=1

I may get around to sharing some of my other favorite neglected Saint-Saëns in the comments later. You must feel free to share some of yours as well!