Today I want to share with you Camille Saint–Saens’ Piano Concerto No. 1. This is not Saint–Saens’ most popular concerto – his concerto No. 2 (which I’ll share with you next week) is by far the best-known of his piano concertos.
I had a hard time finding a recording of the first concerto on YouTube. Saint–Saens’ first concerto is very dear to me. It may lack the depth of the second concerto, but it has this note of optimism and energy that strikes a chord in me. Like an unstoppable driving force, this optimism shines right through the music.
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Camille Saint-Saëns
Vitaliy,
Do you have any recordings of any Faure or Arensky whose String Quartet in A Minor I love?
I appreciate your articles as well as your recordings.
Vitaliy,
I appreciate your music, family artists, and your investing insights; thank you for the productions.
Do you have any recordings of Faure or Anton Arensky whose String Quartet in A Minor I love?
good day, Vitalij
thanks for your weekly letter – good to read.
Camille Saint-Saëns – I grew up in Germany in the 1940/50ies – and listened to the Norddeutscher Rundfunk – sunday lunch concert – all and nothing but classic music. I have a great knowledge – of course I don’t know the titles.
this concert I do not remember very well, though I am sure to have heard it.
well, thank you very much and carry on – Margret
Thanks as always for the music recommendation! I’m a great fan of Saint-Saëns. I agree that his second concerto is probably the best known, but I strongly recommend his fifth piano concerto, the “Egyptian.” Saint-Saëns wrote it while on a boat traveling the Nile, and he included many harmonies and key signatures that are based on Egyptian and middle eastern music. They are strange and unfamiliar to western ears, but very interesting.
This is not a composer I was previously familiar with so I appreciate the introduction! I enjoy your newsletters, the wonderful music and your families beautiful art…
The opening with the fanfare played by natural horn was (shall we say) “recalled” by Brahms in his B-flat concerto twenty years later. But of course that portly work doesn’t have the Saint Saens joie de vivre.
Listen to the THIRD movement of Saint-Saens 1st Piano concerto. It has a power house of a coda and is especially wonderful.