With his four symphonic poems, Camille Saint-Saëns placed himself firmly in the tradition of Hector Berlioz and Franz Liszt. The first critical editions offer an opportunity for new interpretations based on authoritative primary sources, both in the 2021 anniversary year (the 100th anniversary of the composer’s death) and well beyond.
In the 1870s, against the background of the newly-founded “Société nationale de musique”, Camille Saint-Saëns strove to find a connection with the great German Romantic orchestral works in instrumental music, and to develop a genuine repertoire for France. With this choice of genre, in musico-political terms the composer positioned himself on the side of the “new Germans”, the “musicians of the future”, against reactionary attitudes, thereby stirring up rather anti-German resentment in Paris, as documented in early press reports. This process, both exciting and controversial, is described in a special essay on the reception of these works by Editorial Director Michael Stegemann in the Complete Edition volume.
Le Rouet d’Omphale (“Omphale’s Spinning-Wheel”) was initially conceived as a work for two pianos, and a version for piano solo was also published before Saint-Saëns orchestrated his “Scherzo” in March 1872. It was performed on 14 April by Jules Pasdeloup. In a note attached to the printed score the composer explained: “The subject of this symphonic poem is female seduction and the triumphant struggle of weakness over strength. The wheel is just a pretext, selected just from the point of view of rhythm and the general movement of the piece. People who are interested in such things will see Hercules straining under the shackles he cannot break, and Omphale mocking the hero’s hopeless efforts.”
Phaéton was premiered by Édouard Colonne on 7 December 1873 in the Théâtre du Châtelet. “The central idea of Phaéton is pride, as the central idea of Le Rouet d’Omphale is lust”, Saint-Saëns explained. His source for the story of Phaeton was probably Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Phaeton was permitted to drive the chariot of the Sun god, his father, through the sky. But his unskilled hands lost control of the horses. The flaming chariot was thrown off course and came close to the earth. The whole universe would have gone up in flames if Jupiter had not struck down the foolish Phaeton with his thunderbolt.
The Danse macabre, now probably the best-known musical dance of death of all, has its origins in the song of the same name which Saint-Saëns had composed in August 1872 to a poem entitled “Égalité – Fraternité” by Henri Cazalis. Following the success of his two earlier symphonic poems he composed a third one as an expansion of the song in 1874. The score is prefaced by an excerpt from the original poem:
Zig et zig et zag, la mort en cadence / Frappant une tombe avec son talon, / La mort à minuit joue un air de danse, / Zig et zig et zag, sur son violon. [Ziggy, ziggy, zig, Death taps rhythmically / With his claw on a tomb, / At midnight Death plays a dance tune, / Ziggy, ziggy, zig, on his violin.]
The first performance was conducted by Édouard Colonne at the Concert du Châtelet on 24 January 1875 with a repeat performance on 7 February. It was met with little enthusiasm by the press. When Pasdeloup conducted it on 24 October 1875 it was greeted with a salvo of whistles and boos, the audience perhaps thinking that the solo violin was simply out of tune. The E string of the violin solo is tuned down to E flat, forming the “diabolic” interval of a diminished fifth with the open A – the tritone – and thus embodying the devilish quality of the music; the solo part never goes higher than E flat2, so that the string is played only open. Also notable is the first use of a xylophone in the orchestra, which contributes to the very characteristic tonal colour.
Saint-Saëns composed La Jeunesse d‘Hercule in winter 1876/77 and the premiere took place on 28 January 1877 conducted by Édouard Colonne. The fable, taken from Xenophon’s Memorabilia, narrates how at his entry into life Hercules was faced with the choice of two paths: that of pleasure and that of virtue. Untouched by the blandishments of nymphs and bacchantes, the hero embarks on a life of struggle and combat at the end of which he has a vision, through the flames of his funeral pyre, of the reward of immortality.
Hugh Macdonald / Annette Thein
(from [t]akte 2/2019 – translation: Elizabeth Robinson)