Camille Saint-Saëns
Piano Concerto No. 5, “Egyptian”
Camille Saint-Saëns began composing at the precocious age of three and at eleven debuted as a concert pianist, offering as an encore to play any Beethoven sonata the audience could name. The brilliant child grew into a virtuoso pianist and internationally acclaimed organist who poured out elegant, perfectly-proportioned works as naturally, he said, as “an apple tree producing apples.” Considered relatively modern in his youth – he championed the music of Schumann and Wagner, and was friends with Berlioz and Lizst – he lived to become something of a reactionary, protesting works by Debussy and outraged by Stravinsky. Though today Saint-Saëns is known for a relatively few works (his so-called “organ” Symphony No. 3, 1886; the opera Samson and Delilah, 1877, and the ever-popular Carnival of the Animals, 1886), he published nearly 300 compositions in his 86 years.
In 1872 he received a large bequest from the estate of the director of the French Post Office, who felt that a gifted composer should not have to work (as organist of La Madeleine in Paris) to supplement his income. This money, together with income from royalties and performance fees, let Saint-Saëns indulge his passion for travel. As a conductor he worked in Moscow, London, and the United States. He also visited Brazil, Ceylon, and Algiers. The Piano Concerto No. 5 was composed in Luxor during a visit to Egypt, and Saint-Saëns premiered it in 1896 with himself as soloist at a Jubilee Concert given to commemorate his precocious debut 50 years earlier.
Though the work is nicknamed “Egyptian” due to its compositional birthplace, it is actually a synthesis of many of the composer’s eastern wanderings. Saint-Saëns himself said that the piece depicts a sea voyage. The first movement contrasts swelling, pulsing crescendos and bursts of rapid energy with a more languid, sometimes plaintive theme, perhaps suggesting the alternate excitement and ennui, or even loneliness, of the traveler. The piano part features brilliant runs up and down the keyboard like swiftly flowing waters. Yet in the end the languid theme segues to quiet ripples and a few soft notes as our traveler comes to safe harbor.
The second movement contains the most exotic melodies in the piece, and features a Nubian love song the composer heard on the Nile. Some of the more eastern-sounding effects include moments when the pianist plays a set of parallel sixths separated by several octaves, and a quasi-Asian melody in the left hand against a “Chopsticks”-like repetition in the right hand. The movement is framed by episodes of pulsing strings, but ultimately calmed by the piano’s final slow notes.
The third movement begins with a flurry of motion from the piano, joined quickly by the full orchestra in a vivacious theme. The entire section is fraught with activity, with soloist and orchestra trading propulsive melodies. The oboe and then the strings sound a sinuous theme over the piano’s cascading notes, the latter then breaking into thumping chords that herald the final vigorous passage. Our sense of motion is increased as the piano rises up the scale in opposition to strings and woodwinds traveling downward, and we return to the jaunty tune of the beginning. Then, with an insistent beat from the timpani (said to resemble the sound of a ship’s propeller) the piano cascades upward and the movement is brought to a fiery close. It seems we have reached our final destination in Saint-Saëns’ journey, complete with fireworks and a flourish.
February 11, 2001