Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Saint-Saëns

Saint-Saëns’ Fury Franck Holmès Music from Marlboro

It’s music to get Camille Saint-Saëns’ blood boiling, on the next “Music from Marlboro.”

Saint-Saëns was the dedicatee of the Piano Quintet in F minor by his friend, César Franck. But as he sight-read through the piano part at the work’s premiere in 1879, he became more and more agitated, angry even. At the conclusion of the piece, he rejected Franck’s attempt to shake his hand, and stormed off without acknowledging the applause.

He wasn’t the only one. Franck’s wife also made no secret of hating it.

Here was music of sublimated desire, and everyone knew the cause. Saint-Saëns knew, because he felt the same way about Franck’s pupil, Augusta Holmès. Franck tutored Holmès in organ and composition. No doubt he admired her musical talent, but equally there was no doubt his interest went beyond that of master-disciple. Don’t let those mutton chops fool you. A man is only flesh and blood.

There must have been something about Holmès, the French composer of Irish descent, because she had the same effect on just about every man she crossed paths with. Saint-Saëns had proposed marriage to her multiple times, always without success. He would refer to her as a “beautiful pythoness.” Methinks his vines had tender sour grapes.

We’ll hear a performance of Franck’s incendiary piece, featuring pianist Mitsuko Uchida, violinists Soovin Kim and David McCarroll, violist Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt, and cellist Matthew Zalkind, from the 2012 Marlboro Music Festival.

The hour will open with a work by Claude Debussy. Debussy composed “En blanc et noir” in 1915, making it one of his later creations, contemporaneous with the Cello Sonata, the Sonata for Flute, Viola and Harp, and the Etudes for solo piano.

It is to be remembered that Saint-Saëns, who basically lived forever, was 80 years-old by this time. He loathed the work. “We must at all costs bar the door of the Institute against a man capable of such atrocities,” he fumed. “They should be put next to the cubist pictures.”

The first movement, an energetic waltz, is dedicated to Serge Koussevitzky; the second, a somber slow movement, to Debussy’s friend, Jacques Charlot, who was killed during the First World War; and the third, a playful scherzando, to Igor Stravinsky.

We’ll hear it played at Marlboro in 2017 by pianists Xiaohui Yang and Cynthia Raim.

The forbidden fruit tastes the sweetest, thanks to Saint-Saëns’ anger management issues, on the next “Music from Marlboro,” this Wednesday evening at 6:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

BONUS: Tune in early to hear one of Holmès’ symphonic poems in the 5:00 hour!

Marlboro School of Music and Festival: Official Page

PHOTOS (clockwise from left): Saint-Saëns, all dressed up with nowhere to go; Franck at the organ; Holmès with her je ne sais crois; Debussy, transfixed by a cigarette

March 27, 2019
Peter Hurford Organist Remembered

The organist Peter Hurford has died. His Bach, Poulenc, and Saint-Saëns recordings have long been a part of my life. Stop with the deaths of the musical giants already!

https://www.gramophone.co.uk/classical-music-news/the-organist-and-choirmaster-peter-hurford-has-died

PHOTO: Hurford, so young, so dapper, at the console with his wife, Patricia, in 1955

March 4, 2019
Saint-Saëns, Rossini & More From Marlboro

On this week’s “Music from Marlboro,” we’ll travel from Saint-Saëns to Saint Petersburg, with a performance by Lara St. John tossed into the mix.

Works by two child prodigies (well, one of them “former”) will be heard on the first half of the program.

Camille Saint-Saëns demonstrated perfect pitch at the age of two and gave his first public concert at five. He was 72, at the other end of a very long career, when he composed his Fantaisie, Op. 124. We’ll hear it performed by violinist Thomas Zehetmair and harpist Alice Giles, at the 1982 Marlboro Music Festival.

Gioachino Rossini would blossom into one the most productive of opera composers, but even as a boy there was evidence of his remarkable facility and fecundity. He wrote his six string sonatas, scored for two violins, cello, and double bass, in 1804, over a period of three days. Rossini was twelve years-old. The sonatas are rhythmically vital and full of the kinds of melodies that would soon endear him to audiences the world over. We’ll hear the third of these, the String Sonata in C major, in a 1989 performance, featuring violinists St. John and Ivan Chan, cellist Paul Tortelier, and double bassist Timothy Cobb.

Then we’ll round out the hour with Anton Arensky’s Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor. Arensky, a pupil of that icon of Russian nationalism, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, gravitated more toward the cosmopolitan sound of Rimsky’s rival, Peter Ilych Tchaikovsky. His trio is full of good tunes, always charming, regardless of whether the music is melancholy, turbulent, reflective, or good humored. It’s the kind of piece that will have you humming for the rest of the day. It was played at the 1982 Marlboro Music Festival by pianist Frederick Moyer, violinist Isodore Cohen, and cellist John Sharp.

We’re grasping for saints on this Krampusnacht. I hope you’ll join me for the next “Music from Marlboro,” this Wednesday evening at 6:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

In the meantime, here’s a link to Lara St. John’s new “Hanukkah Carol,” co-written with accordionist Ronn Yedidia and sung by countertenor Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen.

Marlboro School of Music and Festival: Official Page

December 5, 2018
Saint-Saëns Mozart & Marlboro

On this All Saints’ Day, we’ll have music by Saint-Saëns, to open this week’s “Music from Marlboro.” In fact, works by two former prodigies will frame tonight’s program.

Saint-Saëns demonstrated perfect pitch at the age of two and gave his first public concert at the age of five. He was 72, at the other end of a very long career, when he composed his Fantaisie, Op. 124. We’ll hear it performed by violinist Thomas Zehetmair and harpist Alice Giles, from the 1982 Marlboro Music Festival.

Mozart, of course, was composing from the age of five; he wrote his first symphony at the age of eight. He lived less than half as long at Saint-Saëns (who died at 86), but in his comparatively brief span managed to hit greater heights. We’ll conclude with Mozart’s Piano Trio in B-flat major, K. 502, written in 1786, when he was about 30 years-old and at the peak of his powers. We’ll hear a recording made at Marlboro in 1968, with pianist (and Marlboro co-founder) Rudolf Serkin, violinist Jaime Laredo, and cellist Madeline Foley.

In between, we’ll have “Ainsi la nuit” (Thus the Night) by Henri Dutilleux. The seven-movement string quartet was meticulously crafted by the composer between 1973 and 1976, after intensive study of the works of Beethoven, Bartok, and Webern, and a series of preliminary sketches he called “Nights.” Nevermind the prodigy status; Dutilleux was about 60 at the time he completed the piece. All the hard work certainly paid off – the quartet was embraced as a modern masterpiece. We’ll hear it performed at Marlboro in 2001 by violinists Joseph Lin and Harumi Rhodes, violist Richard O’Neill, and cellist Marcy Rosen.

I hope you’ll join me for music by Saint-Saëns, Dutilleux, and Mozart, on the next “Music from Marlboro,” this Wednesday evening at 6 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

Marlboro School of Music and Festival: Official Page

Caricature of Saint-Saëns playing the harp, by his pupil, Gabriel Fauré

November 1, 2017

Tag Cloud

RECENT POSTS