Camille Saint Saëns

Concepts such as evolution and progress are hardly fitting when considering the history of the arts. Each period and place has its own language, which borrows from what had preceded it, paves the way for what will follow, but also rejects some elements of the past and will be partly rejected by the future. Forms and genres prized by one generation are forgotten by the following, and new styles become fashionable in place of the preceding ones. Each of them may produce – and normally does – great masterpieces, which influence in turn what will happen in the future decades.

Unusually the liner note deserves a mention ahead of the music: the fine pianist Jeremy Denk, half of this regular duo, manages to encapsulate the elusiveness of French romantic music with such insight in a few sharp sentences, his words almost shape the way we listen to this superbly played disc. Saint-Saëns' wistful and emotional Sonata No 1 and Ravel's bluesy, ironic sonata have a whipped, airy quality. Joshua Bell plays with fire and finesse, with Denk a powerful ally. Franck's dark-light violin sonata, mysterious, ardent and far more than the sum of its parts when played as majestically as here, forms the centrepiece of this seriously beguiling disc.

The acclaimed combination of Diego Fasolis and Swiss Radio present Camille Saint-Saëns’s Partsongs and Requiem Mass.
This is the only available recording of the Requiem Mass.
Saint-Saëns’s Requiem is a highly appealing work with beautiful and complex harmonies. There is plenty of colour, too – as one would expect from this inexhaustibly inventive opera composer – but also sincerity and gravitas.

Camille Saint-Saëns - Ben van Oosten - Complete Organ Works
3xCD | EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 584 MB | Full Artwork: 210 MB | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: MDG "Gold" # 316 1767-2 | Country/Year: Germany 2012
Genre: Classical | Style: Romantic, Early 20th Century, Organ

The infinite cosmos of French organ music is Ben van Oosten’s realm, and he now has recorded the complete organ works of Camille Saint-Saëns in a sumptuous box set. He performs on the Cavaillé Coll organ in Ste. Madeleine in Paris, one of the most beautiful instruments of its kind and an organ with a big orchestral sound on which Saint-Saëns himself left his traces for more than two decades…

The two string quartets of Camille Saint-Saëns are not among the deathless masterpieces in the genre, but they offer enough entertaining and agreeable music to be regarded as minor classics of chamber music. The String Quartet in E minor, Op. 112, and the String Quartet No. 2 in G major, Op. 153, share the craftsmanship, intellectual rigor, and tastefulness that are characteristic of Saint-Saëns' conservative style.