Romance in D flat for Flute, Op. 37

It’s understandable that nationalism surges at times of insecurity, and following the humiliation of the French at the hands of the Germans in January 1871, despite the best efforts of Saint-Saens’ Marche Heroīque, there was a strong wave of pro-French, and anti-German sentiment. On the positive, and musical, side this led to Saint-Saens and others (including his pupil Fauré and his later bête-noire, Cèsar Franck¹) forming Ars Gallica, a music society dedicated to staging chamber music concerts featuring new distinctly French contemporary music². Part of this was to fight back against the preponderance of German music in the concert hall (remembering this was a time when the French music scene was overwhelmingly focussed on opera, not instrumental music), but also because in the impoverished state of Paris meaning larger scale orchestral concerts and opera were not stage-able.

On the negative side, the acquiescence and surrender of the French government to the Germans, led to the installation of a puppet regime, controlled from Versailles. For many in Paris, who had fought in the siege of the previous months (including some of Saint-Saens friends), this was a kick in the face, and effectively a mini-state, the Paris Commune, was formed by these remaining Parisian fighters. If you can spot that none of this was going to end well, well then you were probably with 95% of the Parisian population at the time, and when the French regime eventually stormed the city in late May 1871, their actions against the Communards was brutal, slaughtering over 18,000 Parisians within a few weeks.

The Communards were not, themselves paragons of heroic virtue, it should be said, and during the two months they controlled Paris (from mid-March to mid-May) were themselves ruthless and judgemental about who was to blame for France’s loss. Apart from the usual communistic enemies, the aristocracy, anger was focused also on the Catholic church.

This situation made life potentially dangerous for Saint-Saens. His connections with some of the previous fighters for Paris, and involvement in fund-raising concerts for them, presumably initially made him think he might be safe from the Communards’ purge. But as he saw his French high-society friends begin to flee to the country, or even overseas (mostly to London), he followed the pleas of his mother and aunt to himself vamoose, which he did in late March 1871. Possibly, the final straw was the threat to the Madeleine Church, to which he was still connected, if not directly employed as organist, and he swiftly left to join his friends in London, where he remained until after the fall of the Commune. The decision was probably a good one, since a couple of days after he left, the mob lynched his former boss Abbé (the head priest) of the Madeleine, after he went outside to plea with them. It’s no surprise that really the events of the Franco-Prussian war, and the aftermath, were really the last time Saint-Saens had any sympathy with ‘revolutionary’ causes, and ultimate hardened him into the crusty conservative he eventually became – both politically, socially and musically.

The Romance in D flat, was about the first piece written by Saint-Saens for the Ars Gallica concerts, and almost certainly – with its composition date marked as 27^th March 1871 – the last piece he wrote before making his getaway. Dedicated to a flautist called De Vroye, but ultimately premièred in 1872 by Paul Taffanel, a much more famous flutterer³, in a version for flute and piano. Scored for a small chamber orchestra and solo flute, the romance is conventionally structured in a binary form (A – B – A), with the only unusual aspects about it being it’s featuring of a flute soloist and the slightly atypical key signature of five flats⁴.

It’s tempting to always read external feelings, events and motivations into music. Surely, given Saint-Saens’ situation, the Romance should have dark rumblings, sinister tones or torrid passion? Er, no. This is among the gentlest possible pieces – with a clear long melodic line that is much more yearning and sad than passionate. Accompanied by shimmering violins, and pizzicato violas doing their best harp impersonations, the main theme just transports you away from the miseries that Parisians must have been feeling in that bloody spring.

After veering through a modulation of the tune into E major, we come to the D major middle section with a shorter syncopated melodic fragment, punctuated by gentle rhythms from the quiet trumpets (who don’t otherwise have much at all to do).

We soon return to the main theme in the home key, with the violins now supplying gentle zephyrs of running semiquavers to a more sweeping version of the tune, played up an octave by the soloist.

There’s a couple of more technically demanding cadenza-ish bars here and there, but this is not a virtuosic piece. It works perfectly for the flute, and indeed uses the lower” breathier” register of the flute for added wistfulness⁵. It’s lucky that this piece didn’t get lost in the chaos of Saint-Saens quick departure from his home city, because it’s certainly a beautiful and heartfelt piece that really would be great to hear more of. Why are shorter concertante pieces so unpopular in modern concert halls? ⁶

 

Romance in D flat for Flute, Op. 37

 Why you might want to listen to it: It’s not revolutionary, but sometimes, as Saint-Saens would attest, being revolutionary is not desirable. This is 6 minutes of peaceful and rather beautiful reflection. This is close your eyes music.

Why you might want to avoid it: Saint-Saens was a bourgeoisie yadda yadda, who should have been first up against the wall in 1871. Cancel him!

¹ though there was hardly a composer on the French music scene who didn’t become an enemy of Saint-Saens, which was presumably one of the reasons he spent so much time travelling in his later years.

² Franck was Belgian, though.

³ Surely a much better name for a flautist.

⁴ enough to make most amateurs groan.

⁵ New, with 25% added wistfulness!

⁶ Answers in the comments please.