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drplaceboIt's Forgotten Masterpiece Friday!
Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) is not exactly a forgotten composer. At least half a dozen of his pieces are part of the standard orchestral repertoire, and his comic chamber suite Carnival of the Animals and his opera Samson and Delilah are also famous. But much of his music has also fallen into obscurity; while his greatest hits remain popular, virtually everything else is rarely performed today.
This is especially true of his chamber music, some of which was composed for unusual combinations of instruments. One of these more obscure pieces is his Septet for trumpet, piano, and strings – the trumpet is certainly not an instrument we normally hear alongside strings in a chamber ensemble! The surprising and truly impressive thing about the Septet is that the trumpet does not dominate as one would expect but is integrated into the ensemble as an equal partner. Though it was an instant success when first performed, its unusual instrumentation made further performances few and far between.
Much like Carnival of the Animals, this septet started out as a joke. Saint-Saëns frequently performed as a pianist with a Parisian amateur chamber music society known as “La Trompette.” The society's founder Émile Lemoine had suggested on a number of occasions, tongue firmly planted in cheek, that Saint-Saëns should compose a piece for them involving a trumpet. Saint-Saëns declined with equal humor, saying at one point that he would rather create a work for guitar and thirteen trombones. But eventually, on a whim, he decided that it would no longer be a joke. In 1879, around Christmas, Saint-Saëns surprised Lemoine by presenting him with a one-movement piece for trumpet, two violins, viola, cello, double bass, and piano. Without hesitation, Lemoine put the piece on La Trompette's next concert program in January 1880, with the composer playing the piano part. The audience was so pleased that Saint-Saëns promised on the spot to compose three more movements. He kept his word, and La Trompette premiered the complete septet in December of the same year. The single movement he had composed a year earlier became the first movement of the four-movement septet.
In some ways, the Septet could be considered far ahead of its time, foreshadowing the neoclassical movement that appeared in the early 20th century. Saint-Saëns was also a music historian and editor, and when he composed the Septet he was in the midst of preparing new editions of music by the French Baroque composers Lully and Rameau. Perhaps inspired by that work, he used Baroque dance forms in the second and fourth movements of the Septet and adopted a spare, restrained aesthetic for the piece as a whole. Indeed, parts of the Septet seem reminiscent of Stravinsky's Pulcinella, which of course would not be composed for another 40 years.
Movements:
I. Préambule
II. Menuet (4:21)
III. Intermède (9:00)
IV. Gavotte et Final (13:53)
Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) is not exactly a forgotten composer. At least half a dozen of his pieces are part of the standard orchestral repertoire, and his comic chamber suite Carnival of the Animals and his opera Samson and Delilah are also famous. But much of his music has also fallen into obscurity; while his greatest hits remain popular, virtually everything else is rarely performed today.
This is especially true of his chamber music, some of which was composed for unusual combinations of instruments. One of these more obscure pieces is his Septet for trumpet, piano, and strings – the trumpet is certainly not an instrument we normally hear alongside strings in a chamber ensemble! The surprising and truly impressive thing about the Septet is that the trumpet does not dominate as one would expect but is integrated into the ensemble as an equal partner. Though it was an instant success when first performed, its unusual instrumentation made further performances few and far between.
Much like Carnival of the Animals, this septet started out as a joke. Saint-Saëns frequently performed as a pianist with a Parisian amateur chamber music society known as “La Trompette.” The society's founder Émile Lemoine had suggested on a number of occasions, tongue firmly planted in cheek, that Saint-Saëns should compose a piece for them involving a trumpet. Saint-Saëns declined with equal humor, saying at one point that he would rather create a work for guitar and thirteen trombones. But eventually, on a whim, he decided that it would no longer be a joke. In 1879, around Christmas, Saint-Saëns surprised Lemoine by presenting him with a one-movement piece for trumpet, two violins, viola, cello, double bass, and piano. Without hesitation, Lemoine put the piece on La Trompette's next concert program in January 1880, with the composer playing the piano part. The audience was so pleased that Saint-Saëns promised on the spot to compose three more movements. He kept his word, and La Trompette premiered the complete septet in December of the same year. The single movement he had composed a year earlier became the first movement of the four-movement septet.
In some ways, the Septet could be considered far ahead of its time, foreshadowing the neoclassical movement that appeared in the early 20th century. Saint-Saëns was also a music historian and editor, and when he composed the Septet he was in the midst of preparing new editions of music by the French Baroque composers Lully and Rameau. Perhaps inspired by that work, he used Baroque dance forms in the second and fourth movements of the Septet and adopted a spare, restrained aesthetic for the piece as a whole. Indeed, parts of the Septet seem reminiscent of Stravinsky's Pulcinella, which of course would not be composed for another 40 years.
Movements:
I. Préambule
II. Menuet (4:21)
III. Intermède (9:00)
IV. Gavotte et Final (13:53)