Customer Reviews

Saint-Saëns: Piano Concertos 1-5

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Looking at the other reviews here, I can only nod in complete agreement. Saint-Saëns is an underrated composer and these 5 concertos are joyful, seductive and deserving of a lot more attention than they have received. Saint-Saëns, like Mendelssohn, had the ability to instantly inspire happiness in the listener, this listener anyhow. Yes, the 2nd and 4th occasionally do get an airing, but the "Eqyptian" (the 5th) is every bit their equal and the remaining two concertos certainly have their own merits. The five deserve a double disc outing like this.

The performances here are very, very fine indeed. I have not heard the Collard/Previn versions (which are referred to in another review), although I have several versions of the 2nd and 4th. Charles Dutoit and Pascal Roge do a wonderful job, investing these performances with the affection and conviction they deserve. True, there is more of the virtuoso than the philosopher about Roge's playing, but that is entirely appropriate to Saint-Saëns. This is feel-good music (and music-making) of the very highest callibre.

Returning to these discs is always a pleasure for me and I hope will be for you. If you have even a passing interest in late Romantic piano concertos treat yourself to these.

I put the Roge/Dutoit up against the Collard/Previn/RPO with headphones and preferred the latter. Both sets are very nice, but the Collard has more depth, character and detail especially with headphones. The Collard is lighter and more elegant with the delicate passages sounding more delicate, while the Roge is louder and more forceful. The piano seems cleaner and more up front with the digital recording of Collard as compared to the analog recording of Roge.

If lovely melodies, crystal-clear sound, wonderful pacing do not interest you...then, do not buy these CDs, otherwise, go for it. Charles Dutoit does it again, he brings freshness, intelligence, drive, and, above all, incredible sound to this music. This is my first listening experience with Pascal Roge, he plays with deftness, charm, and, I think, with an appropreiate amount of romanticism. I had not heard four of the Concertos, and it is exciting to discover something new and unexpected.

One of my favorite recordings!

I never tire of this set, which sparkles from beginning to end. The first is particularly irresistable with an exhuberant opening, a beautiful and tense adagio and a thrilling conclusion. I won't comment on the others except to say they are also fine Romantic piano concertos. A great introduction to Saint-Saens' music (but don't miss the magnificent 3rd symphony) or even as an introduction to classical music.

Kudos to Dutoit, Roge and of course Saint-Saens! Although he is very well known, this is another example of why Saint-Saens is one of the most under-appreciated composers of all time. Just my $0.02...

Having listened to other recordings, plus hearing live ones, of Concerto #2 (the most popular) for 15 years, it was nice to hear the entire pentalogy of the Saint-Saens piano concerti.
Pascal Roge may not be as big a name as Martha Argerich or
Vladimir Ashkenazy, but he certainly knows how to play the piano.
There isn't a dull moment in any of them. Roge captures all the youthful exuberance in the musically-straightforward 1st concerto. The 5th concerto (often called "The Egyptian concerto") is definitely the best of the lot. The tonal coloring is exquisite throughout, especially in the 'Nile River' 2nd movement and the boisterous finale. I could listen to it all day. The 3rd and 4th concerti are fine; these are musically less interesting than the other three. The orchestra is equally virtuosic and never oversteps its bounds, under the guidance of Dutoit. Highly recommended.

Camille Saint-Saens was the master, if not the father, of french classical music; a friend to Liszt, Faure (formerly a pupil) and Berlioz (no small honor, to say the least). He was a prodigy and a genius. He began playing piano at 2, and wrote his first piece at 4. He was reading and writing by the age of 3 and was fluent in Latin by the age of 7. His first published composition, Symphony No. 1, was completed by the time he was 16. He also excelled at math and the sciences. He was truly a man to be marveled at and appreciated.
But what do you get when you listen to his 1st Piano Concerto? Wagner! The opening of the piece is so heavily influenced by Wagner that it is hard to believe that it was composed by someone other than Wagner. But, Richard Wagner was someone that Saint-Saens championed in France for many years as an instructor, compser, conductor and performer; a pursuit that would not save him later in life when his anti-Nazi retoric landed him in the 'hot seat' with the French and German governments; but as always, I digress.
These Concerti are wonderful. The treatment by pianist Pascal Roge and London's 3 great Orchestras (London Philharmonic, Philharmonia, Royal Philharmonic) all conducted by Charles Dutoit, is wonderful. Each piece is thoughtfully and beautifully played with a passion that can be felt through the speakers/headphones.
PC#1 opens with a Wagnerian horn solo that fades to light strings, a soft piano melody, and more strings before breaking into the main theme of the piece. The horn is prevalent throughout, as are the strings, but the work on the piano is superb. The second movement is very dark and falls slightly short of eerie; low, slow cellos backdropped by plucking violins lead to a soft and slow piano melody that is beautiful and very satisfying. Again, the strings play a large part in the piece while the theme from the opening movement continues. The third movement mixes all of the themes from the horns, the piano and the strings in a uplifting and inspiring finale.
PC#2 opens with a lengthy piano solos that fades just before the orchestra booms to life and queitly fades back to the piano. The second movement is light and airy with joyful strings and lighthearted piano work. The third movement is quick, somewhat dominated by piano.
PC#3 opens with a glimpse of future offerings by Saint-Saens. The piano work is very indicative of (one of my all time favorite pieces) The Aquarium. The second movement is heavily influenced by strings before a dark, deep theme on the piano enters to counteract the lighter fare offered by the strings. The third movement is a bit odd; it opens briefly with strings, scrambles to piano and then weaves the two in a strange sort of give and take that results in the returning main theme, played on strings and backed by horns and the piano.
PC#4 opens softly with strings and piano and the two play back and forth in a serenade that is quite lovely. The shift to the second movement goes unnoticed as the piece was actually written as 2 movements with the opening (allegro-moderato) and the (technical) 2nd (andante) are joined and play seamlessly. The final movement moves much quicker and lifts the spirits, playing the original theme much quicker, before returning to a slower interlude that eventually builds back to a large crescendo in which the piano leads the orchestra to a large finish.
PC#5 is known as "The Egyptian" because Saint-Saens composed it on vacation in Egypt. The piece was written for his jubilee (celebrating the 50th anniversary of his premiere in 1846). The title is misleading as this composition draws on Saint-Saens WORLD travels and not just his winter vacation spot in Luxor, Egypt. The entire piece is light-hearted and follows the typical Saint-Saens interplay of strings and piano, with added moments of silence that seem to make the piece more exciting (IMO). The second movement (andante) is surprisingly intense for an andante; opening with a clash of cymbals and a large piano solo before settling in to its theme and calmly filling the bill of a true andante. The final movement moves quickly on the piano with minimal orchestration at first. When the orchestra does come in, it is definitely the support in this movement as the piano is showcased in a virtuoso style run of the keys and several (I assume as I don't play the piano) difficult chord progressions. The finale is a wonderful mix of piano, strings and woodwinds that is both breathtaking and fulfilling.

Saint-Saens led a sad life with many difficulties (2 children died within six months of each other, a seperation from his wife, depression, disagreements and cutting remarks to and from contemporaries) but his music is still so inspiring and amazingly uneffected.

The recordings are beautiful and the perforances grand. The only complaint that I could have is that the 3rd Concerto is split betwen disc 1 and disc 2 which tends to break the feel of the piece as a whole when you wait for the CD player to advance to another disc. But this is a minor issue and, due to the quality of the recording, well worth over-looking.

Definitely buy this!

Saint-Saens is one of those composers who always makes classical music the way it should be. Maybe a little less experimentation than his contemporaries, but the results are rarely boring.
This collection of concertos is an example of Saint-Saens at his best. Though only the second concerto has achieved fame as one of the great piano concertos, they are all wonderful: full of drama and beauty. Probably, people had to choose one favorite, so they chose the second and neglected the rest. But this recording presents all five concertos in all their splendour. A wonderful experience.
It is a slight nusiance that the third concerto is split over the two CD's, but it is probably the only way they could have presented the five concertos in order.
The performances are brilliant, and the recording sounds great.

This set is slightly odd in more ways than one, but not ways that seem to me to matter much. Not when compared with the set's virtues anyway. I have not experienced one instant's doubt over awarding five stars, and I recommend the set wholeheartedly, but please take note of a few points regarding the recorded quality, as they may weigh more heavily with you than they do with me.

The first oddity is that no fewer than three top orchestras have been engaged to participate in this programme of only five not very long or unduly taxing concertos. The most successful items are the second and fifth, in which the orchestra is the Royal Philharmonic. However I suspect that the real issue has nothing to do with orchestras and everything to do with technical details. Concertos 1, 3 and 4 were recorded in the Kingsway Hall in Holborn in the heart of London, but the town hall in unfashionable Walthamstow happens to house one of the finest recording environments in the world. Concertos 2 and 5 were done there, and under a different producer from the others. The entire series appears to have been recorded (analogue) in 1981, but not only has it featured different orchestras, different recording venues and different producers, the type of sound also differs among concertos 1,3 and 4. The piano tone in no 3 is a little pinched and lacking in bloom, (this one has its own sound engineer), and the effect in no 1 is even slightly peculiar. The piano sounds too close, but in fact not too loud and it does not dominate the orchestra. To tell the truth, it's not unattractive, but it's hardly a model of how to do things either. Most importantly, it does not prevent us from enjoying the languid effortless brilliance of Roge's passagework, still less his elegant patrician phrasing.

This soloist is simply perfect for these concertos. To hear the whole effect at its very best try the last concerto, which gives the set a brilliant send-off. However nothing that Roge does here is anything short of superlative. Also, although there are three orchestras there is only one conductor, namely Dutoit, and I am coming to associate his name with excellence in everything he does. I prefer to steer clear of the question whether French ethnicity confers special insights into French music, but presumably it does no harm. I have not sought Roge out specifically when looking for certain works of Faure and Ravel, but when looking through reviews for guidance his was the name that kept coming up, and I have not gone wrong yet by following the recommendations I was given. The whole sense of this set is one of easy authenticity. These artists understand this music with their heads, sure, but they have another organ of understanding too, the marrow of their bones, which is the same stuff as the composer's was.

It is also apparent that they love the music, and so they ought to in my own view, because I love it too. If I may say so, some very foolish and insolent criticism has been levelled at Saint-Saens, not least by Tovey at his silliest. Music so elegant, accomplished, original and beautiful as this does not grow on trees, and when Ravel was starting work on his own concerto he linked Saint-Saens as a model with the greatest concerto-writer of them all, Mozart. Roge's cool assurance and patrician poise are the perfect counterpart. You can appreciate it more or less anywhere on the two discs - as a random example in the way he and Dutoit ease back the tempo for the second theme in the second movement of the second work - and it is a source of sustained enjoyment throughout the last concerto.

Whatever we think of Saint-Saens and however we ultimately rate him, he never seems to do anything badly, which is more than I could say for his nearest parallel Mendelssohn, and come to that more than I could say for Beethoven or Wagner. It is music with perfect manners, and here we have a soloist similarly gifted. Despite some ups and downs in the engineering, there is nothing here than came within un kilometre of spoiling my enjoyment. Even the unpretentious liner note is not bad, partly because it is unpretentious. There are 70 minutes of music per disc, give a couple on the first disc and take a compensating couple on the second. Concerto no 3 has had to be split between the discs - oh what hardships we have to endure - and the recording even at its best is only ADD. Take comfort from the asking price if either of these factors bothers you. Myself, I take my comfort from the music.

It's a pity one of the concertos straddles the two discs. Other than that, if you're looking for all five in one inexpensive collection, this is it.

I know that a lot of reviewers and musical "experts" have a problem with Saint Saens, evidently because emotions are absent from his pieces. Do people, though, consider Hayden's music or Mozart's music chocked full of emotion? Not in my opinion. Not only that, but a lot of these older composers--all their music sounds the same because they wrote forty to one hundred symphonies or some large number to make a LIVING, not to EXPRESS themselves.

Anyway, I can see most people that reviewed these CDs hold either St. Saens or the conductor and orchestra's performance in high regard. I think whether or not Saens put loads of emotion into his pieces is not the point; the point is that it evokes emotion in the listener. The two that stand out in my mind now are two and four, though all of them are interesting. And every time I listen to a concerto, I feel strong emotions--grief, sadness, pity. Sure, those are all sad feelings, but they are all a part of the human, part of existence.

So, to keep myself from going too far off, these are great CDs and great concertos and a great performance of them. However technical, however lacking in depth and perspective, they are wonderous to listen to, and, most importantly, evoke emotions of the listener. Saens accomplished that while being technical, and I can't say that for all the works I've listened to.