I said that I would immediately be breaking the chronological order rules in this blog. So we come to the first major work, written in fact 2 years before Saint-Saens Op.1 – the Symphony he wrote as a callow student at the age of 15.
Saint-Saens, as a child prodigy was not profoundly prodigious as a teenage composer, when compared to obvious parallels like Mozart and Mendelssohn. Looking through the web there are a handful of songs and piano pieces, unpublished, that do not have recordings, but have a line or two from them scattered throughout the Saint-Saens literature. They don’t exactly look like the kind of pieces that would make interesting listening, more like fairly basic composition exercises. But the Symphony in A major is undoubtedly the first substantial work worth writing about.
The influences here are clear – Mozart, Mendelssohn and Beethoven. But actually the piece this most reminds me of is the Bizet Symphony in C major – also a youthful work (in Bizet’s case written at 17) not performed until many years after he had popped his sabots. 1937 in the case of Bizet, 1974 in the case of Saint-Saens. And really, this is the piece that could easily have been published as an Op. 1 – it’s a very decent work. I mean, OK, it’s not Mahler – it doesn’t throw any unusual punches or strange colours – it’s written for a bog standard classical orchestra (basic woodwind, horns, timpani, strings) – standard four movements (Slow/Fast-Slow-Scherzo-Fast). We are not talking anything here to make you want to put this top of your playlist. But it sounds clear and fresh, and is engaging in a way that might make you content to hear it on your drive home from work.
The homage to Mozart is pretty obvious in the first movement – after the slow introduction (reminiscent Mendelssohn’s Reformation Symphony), the main tune of the movement is a straight lift from Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony – the four note motif of A-B-D-C# – so nothing particularly novel, there. But when it comes back round again in the recapitulation there is some interesting woodwind fluttering, and actually the movement ends a bit oddly with the flute kind of rambling on and on with a solo that eventual gets quieter and quieter until it dies away and then there’s one loud BANG A-major chord from the orchestra. There are also a few interesting pauses suddenly thrown into the movement to break things up, in a sort of Beach-Boys-esque ‘Little Girl I once knew’ style.
The slow movement is the longest movement, and actually probably should end about 3 minutes before it does. It’s one of those movements where you think “ah, this is coming to an end, and is quite nice in a sort of ‘I’ll put up with it’ way” and then suddenly we’re off in a whole new section of material, in a way that makes one adopt the slightly pained but polite look of the old lady who has to sit next to Ted Stryker ramble on about his life story in the film Airplane (aka Flying High).
The ‘scherzo’ is pretty like Beethoven 1. But is vaguely interestingly scored for solo flute, solo oboe and strings only. It’s so so, but only last about 3 minutes. So, good for cup of tea making. How thoughtful.
The finale is one of those ‘urgent skittish strings’ perpetuum mobile-type finales. Quite effective – and very like the Bizet symphony last movement. There’s a quite nice middle bit with the oboe and bassoon have a long winded (hah!) tune over the top of the strings’ rapid accompaniment. The symphony wraps up with a presto section that kind of brings things to a pleasant end.
Look – it’s a symphony written at 15 that is very good – but not wow good. I mean, don’t get me wrong, if you had a child who’d written it you’d think ‘Holy crap, that was amazing I could make a fortune here’ – but let’s face it there are quite a few of those already in the history of music. Besides, Saint-Saens mother was determined that he would not become an obnoxious prodigy. Between her, his aunt and a stern female music teacher (his father died when he was 2 years old), Saint-Saens had no option to become insufferable at an early age. He saved it all for later.
Symphony in A major (c. 1850)
Why you might want to listen to it: It’s fresh, clear, pleasant. Like a cleansing moistened tissue on a long haul flight – kind of relaxing and refreshing given the situation, but not what you’d choose to wash yourself with in your own bathroom.
Why you might want to avoid it: Dislike of people who rip off Mozart symphonies and write slow movements that outstay their welcome (although we’re not talking Bruckner here).
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Mike Emery said:
Just listened to this delectable tidbit in the Saint-Saens canon, & it is a lot of fun. Few discuss it, so thanks for your blog comment about it. It runs out of steam, but the first two thirds are solid. I would not recognize it as his without labeling, the way I can recognize Mozart’s juvenile symphonies as unquestionably his. I’d recommend it to those who have heard most of the standard issue material by the composer & want to fill in some gaps.
IMSLP said:
So when was the actual first performance? After the publication of 1974? We’re actually trying to find more about how the work ended up lying untouched for so long. The slightly later ‘Urbs Roma’ symphony (1856) was premiered in Paris on Feb.15, 1857 under the baton of Jules Paseldoup. Saint-Saens conducted it himself later on that year in Bordeaux. The manuscripts for both works were apparently left to the Conservatoire library after the composer’s death and they have the red-stamp of that institution (merged with BNF in 1935).
Javotte said:
I’ve tried to find this information, but can’t see any beyond that it was ‘probably’ not performed during his lifetime. The only suggestion I can offer is to track down a copy of Sabine Teller Ratner’s catalogue of Saint-Saens’ works. There is usually very substantial performance information in there. Unfortunately I don’t have a copy (it’s pretty expensive),