Saint-Saëns, Camille

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Saint-Saëns, Camille

Caprice Andalous for violin and orchestra

SKU: 3095 Category:

20,00 

Camille Saint-Saëns – Caprice andalous for Violin and Orchestra, op. 122

(b. October 9, 1835, in Paris; d. December 16, 1921, in Algiers)

“When he writes a violin concerto it seems as if he were a violin virtuoso on the side – until his cello concerto leads one to suspect that he has devoted himself all his life to the cello –not to mention the piano concertos, for which that really is the case.”1

These are the enthusiastic words used by the musicologist Otto Neitzel to characterise Camille Saint-Saëns’ concerto writing in a monograph that appeared during the composer’s lifetime.

It is indeed true that Saint-Saëns, who, together with Hector Belioz, is rightly considered the most important French composer of the 19th century, produced an impressive range of works for solo instrument(s) and orchestra. Among them there are concertos and concert pieces for piano, violin and cello, that is, for the leading solo instruments in 19th-century music. In addition to these, Saint-Saëns composed numerous other concertante works for instruments that only played a minor part as solo instruments in Romantic music, such as the flute, the organ or the horn. On top of that, the composer made formal experiments which left their mark on the further development of the solo concerto in the 19th century. For a more thorough examination of this topic one can consult the extensive study of Saint-Saëns’ solo concerto writing by Michael Stegemann, which appeared in 1984.2

The concertante works include the Caprice andalous, op. 122, for solo violin and orchestra, which was published in 1904. As the work’s title, with its reference to the southern Spanish region of Andalusia, leads one to expect, various popular melodies underlie the solo violin themes and thus provide the foundation of the piece as a whole. The solo part is not so much designed to demonstrate virtuosity but is marked, rather, by a lyrical song-like nature. The adoption of popular, even exotic, elements is an important detail in Saint-Saens’ creative output as a whole. Thus, works like the fifth piano concerto in F major, op. 103, known as the Egyptian Concerto, or the concert piece for piano and orchestra with the title Africa, op. 89, are witness to the composer’s interest in musical exoticism.3 One motivation for this lies, no doubt, in the numerous journeys that Saint-Saëns made to North Africa, where the composer frequently stayed because of his poor health, and where he passed away in December 1921….  (translation: David Hill)

Read full preface by Bernd Wladika, 2018 > HERE

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