Yes, I agree, Jim. It has a lot of power. When I hear the first few measures of Le Sacre du Printemps I always feel like we’ve been teleported to another galaxy, far, far away . . .
This goes well with black coffee, and Italian pastries. Your location is anywhere, mine is in an apartment. Now drink your coffee and eat Italian sweet pastries...have a nice day, night, morning or lunchtime..
@@steveegallo3384 I envy you, Mexico, central America, South America, some of the most spectacular and exotic places on earth. In a wish that comes true, if somebody said to me: You have two choices for a place to live for the rest of your life, in peace with harmony, nature and people, the two choices are the above mentioned or Mars, I would take the the former.
My location is in a cabin in the Spanish Peaks of Colorado. Sit on my front porch with me. I make great biscottis (always with anise extract) and also drink black coffee. The music of Saint Saens always adds immeasurably to the ambiance. God bless you, Johnny, and keep celebrating life.
It's interesting to note that during this time, when orchestras were growing ever larger, that some Romantic composers still delved into the more intimate feel of chamber music. It's nice to know that not all Romantic era pieces were composed for massive orchestras. I love the massive orchestral compositions as well, but this is much more sublime.
I haven't studied anything about music theory yet. But when i listen to Saint Saens my brain draws patterns and ritournelles, shapes and lines that i can still remember afterwards, they come charged with overwhelming affects. I wish i can study the theory and notes so i can understand how all this works
Music theory is a system that one can find books on in Academic libraries, or music shops. If you have a brain for mathematics you may find it easy to follow.
Saint- Saens has got to be one of the most original and varied styled composers who ever lived. These lesser known gems are a perfect example of his genius.
I agree with you. But I heard one musician--an orchestral director, even--claim that Saint-Saens was among the least intelligent of the French composers. I was flabbergasted by that comment. I'm glad to hear someone other than me sing his praises.
@@ajmittendorf So many people have the disease of German Depth and use it as their only criterion for greatness. Glad that we have S.S.'s "unfailingly elegant lightness of spirit" (per the blurb to this video) to combat it.
@@peloamor349 LOL Speaking as a German man, myself, I'd LIKE to say that I resent your comment, but speaking as a musician and a classical aficionado, I must, instead, give you two thumbs up. ;)
@@ajmittendorf Yeah, Saint-Saens was so unintelligent that he was studying scores when he was 3 and got the full score of Mozart's Don Giovanni as a 5th birthday present.
I come here often, particularly in these difficult times. It's both soothing and invigorating, enlivens, gives hope, lifts the spirits. Thank you so much.
Wunderschöne Interpretation dieser drei perfekt komponierten Sonaten und drei fein komponierten Meisterstücke in verschiedenen Tempi mit klarem Klang des Klaviers, humorvollem Ton des Fagotts, zartem Ton der Flöte, herrlichem Ton der Oboe und mildem Ton der Klarinette. Die intime und perfekt entsprechende Miteinanderwirkung zwischen den allen Solospieler ist wahrlich bewundernswert. Einfach wunderbar!
Très bel album de la musique de chambre de St Saens pour instruments à vent oubliée et ressuscitée par des italiens ! Car le maître français continue son purgatoire dans son propre pays où les musicologues de la bien pensence le dénigrent au profit de Debussy et Ravel .Ses sonates pour violon et violoncelle /piano sont superbes ( Capucon, Moreau, Chamallou ) trios ,septuor ainsi que sa musique pour piano ( 5 vinyle Ades Bernard Ringeisen 1975 dans ma collection personnelle)
The originality of Saint-Saëns is undoubtedly expressed in the works he composed for Camara music. The pieces are of great musical variability grace and elegance, and are very interesting for their variety., employing prominent instruments from the bassoon, the oboe and clarinet, although the piano always represents one fundamental instrument. It is almost sublime dialogue between the piano and the other instruments.The pieces are of an amazing harmony and only a great composer could composed them. Magnificent recording that gives us unforgettable moments of enormous pleasure.
I too 'discovered' it (hidden in plain sight!) just now. Actually, Saint-Saens is a very highly rated polymath, always was, and justifiably so ..... Bizet, for example, was I think unappreciated in his time, but I'm not sure.....
I have never aware of the fact that Saint-Saens works are ever considered to be underrated. Looking at some of his composition such as organ symphony, piano concertos i.e. the egyptian, all of them are amazing and unique. I also can not relate any of his composition to other composers such as Debussy or Ravel.
@@benisica3785 Well, I think we who love Saint-Saens certainly do not underrate him, but his music doesn’t get scheduled often by many American orchestras. And he suffers from not receiving the ancient reverence for teutonic gravity that still, after 300:years, governs serious orchestral music! .
Wonderful music, beautifully played. Among the many pleasures and surprises for me is the Bassoon Sonata. It is startlingly original, graceful, and dramatic music, devoid of stereotypes, with even the humorous passages being good-natured and having no trace of exaggerated grotesqueness. I don't think Saint-Saens had an ill-tempered bone in his body.
I think of Saint-Saens being like a neo-classical composer. He was looking back at the classical era of music (Haydn to Beethoven) & the earlier baroque period. People labelled him as too predictable and prosaic, not poetic, to be a romantic, which had connotations of a Germanic flair, and flawed him for that. But if one hears him as a neo-classical composer one can hear his modus-operandi better. That's the way I hear or think of him. And it is a distinguishing trait. There were not many neo-classical composers in his day. They were all romantics, looking to go off the deep end (as Tchaikovsky & Mahler would do), but Saint Saens wanted to do music that was original but also as straight forward as Bach-Beethoven (or maybe one should say Marais-Berlioz, since he was French) and that's what he did. Prosaic and balanced. Boring, unless one wants to hear music that is prosaic & balanced. Often I do.
@@roberthotlzclaw9012 Faure could be better described as a romantic than Saint Saens because his music had far more individuality to it. Brilliant Classics did a boxset of Faure chamber music once which surprised me because one can never tell what is coming next in any of the pieces in it. To me, Saint Saens is a neo-classical composer, not an individualist or romantic one. His music sounds as impersonal as music pre-Beethoven and "intentionally so".
Double pleasure tonight for me: this elegant chamber music and visual contemplation of just received from France large medallion of Camille Saint-Saens by a parisian sculptor, Hyacynth Chevalier(1886). They seem to go hand in hand. Thank you.
Very beautiful renditions of these great pieces. Each is a delight and more- contemplative and probing. The sonatas are particularly significant in that they were composed in the last year of Saint-Saens life and have a special timeless quality. Saint-Saens' is a master, still somewhat underrated but finally becoming more appreciated. Thank you for posting this fine collection.
The bassoon, oboe & clarinet sonatas were late compositions, published 1921. The caprice & romance (op.37) are from 1874. I clicked the Romance op.67 expecting to hear an unfamiliar work but that is a melody that was originally published as a movement in his Cello Sonata op.16 (1862). It's my favourite movement & it's interesting to hear it was republished alone for a different instrument later on.
You continue to trot out winner after winner for me BC. I loved, loved, loved this selection. Wonderful thanks. Each instrumentalist was very talented and that pianist was possibly the best accompanist I have heard since Gerald Moore.
this reminds me so much of that show Little Bear i used to watch when i was a kid. They had to have some of Saint-Saens music on that shows soundtrack!!!!!! LOVE the bassoon!!!!! so mischievous!
So much amazing sonates for clarinet, horn, oboe , flute and bassoon that i'm so glad to dicover...Thanks for sharing! I'll come back to listen to them on this page. By the way, the painting is beautifull.
You are ageing like a fine wine. Now it is time to find your consciousness. Natural law. That is your next rabbit hole. Investigate while listening to classical. It is the frequency of the universe
I didn't know a thing about classical music until I got bored to death with rock in my late 30's and decided to give it a try. 25 years later I have an enormous collection of classical music and it is probably 90% of my listening.
Charles Camille Saint-Saëns (/sɛ̃.sɑ̃(s)/)n 1, né le 9 octobre 1835 à Paris et mort le 16 décembre 1921 à Alger, est un pianiste, organiste et compositeur français de l'époque romantique. Il a écrit douze opéras, dont le plus connu est Samson et Dalila (1877)4, de nombreux oratorios, cinq symphoniesn 2, cinq concertos pour piano, trois pour violon et deux pour violoncelle, des compositions chorales, un Requiem, un Oratorio de Noël, de la musique de chambre et des pièces pittoresques, dont Le Carnaval des animaux (1886)n 3. De plus, il occupe une place particulière dans l'histoire du cinéma puisqu'il est, en 1908, le tout premier compositeur de renom à composer une musique spécialement pour un film, L'Assassinat du duc de Guise6.Camille Saint-Saëns naît au 3, rue du Jardinet à Parisn 4, fils de Jacques Joseph Victor Saint-Saëns (1798-1835) et de Françoise Clémence Collin (1809-1888). Il est baptisé le 27 octobre 1835 en l'église Saint-Sulpice de Paris. Il commence le piano avec sa grand-tante, puis avec le compositeur et pédagogue Camille-Marie Stamaty (1811-1870). Ce dernier le recommande à Pierre Maleden, compositeur, qui lui enseigne la théorie et la composition. Camille se révèle être un enfant prodige : il donne son premier concert à 10 ans le 6 mai 1846 et fait sensation avec le troisième concerto de Ludwig van Beethoven, et le concerto no 15 K.450 de Mozart. Il écrit et joue même sa propre cadence pour le concerto de Mozart. En parallèle à de brillantes études générales, il entre en 1848, à 13 ans, au Conservatoire, où il étudie l’orgue avec François Benoist (1794-1878), la composition avec Jacques Fromental Halévy (1799-1862) et reçoit aussi les conseils de Charles Gounod (1818-1893). Il sort du Conservatoire avec le prix d’orgue en 1851. La même année, il échoue au concours du prix de Rome. En 1852, il obtient un prix de composition au concours Sainte-Cécile de Bordeaux pour sa cantate Ode à Sainte-Cécile.
that Romance op.37 I first heard as a piece for violin & so I always expect to hear it on violin, but it was originally written for flute as one hears it here.
Contemporary audio track composers should become more aware of Saint-Saens. At the present time, we're in a period of being force-fed a - tonal combined with "mutant tonal" to accommodate an age of distortion.
Ecouter ce compositeur, c'est abolir le déferlement de bruits et d'images du quotidien pour entrouvrir l'espace d'un ailleurs où la contingence et la représentation cèdent la place à l'immatérialité du sensible. Une fois refermée la porte sur l'agitation du monde, un silence sous-jacent s'installe, une lenteur saisit, préludes à une dilatation de la perception et de la conscience. Le pouvoir expressif de l'architecture sonore rompt avec toute forme de transcription du réel pour s'attacher à l'expression d'un univers insaisissable 👀