I have been thinking a lot about the composer Camille Saint-Saens, and am examining my prejudices.
I've never had much time for his music: there are vast amounts of it, and relatively little of it is played.
Saint-Saens had an immense facility at churning out music; it poured effortlessly from him, which he acknowledged himself. Somewhere along the line I began to think of this facility as merely facile, in a derogatory sense. The music seemed shallow. There was nothing much to it. It was low-calorie stuff – fat-free. It had no meat on its bones; it was, indeed, hard to detect any bone structure in the music that could support meat. The music was always elegant, always smartly turned out and always very sophisticated in its orchestration, which was light, stylish, colourfully drafted and deployed with an ease that made this listener suspicious.
Very stylish, and probably at one time fashionable, I would mutter to myself. But where's the content? Of course I loved the Third Symphony, the so-called Organ Symphony, as much as the next man: there's nothing like Saint-Saens's Organ Symphony for a full-on wallow in its rich, chocolatey textures, its now-warm, now-thunderous and floor-shaking organ chords. But it was never music that grabbed you by the scruff of the neck and demanded anything of you. It was lightweight stuff written by a lightweight composer. Or so I have thought.
Recently, I've had cause to think again about Saint-Saens. The process was triggered by Neeme Jarvi's new all-Saint-Saens disc with the RSNO, which I reviewed last weekend in the Sunday Herald. I listened many times to the music, especially the composer's four short symphonic poems which form the core of Jarvi's selection. They are alluring and beguiling and, quite suddenly, I was asking myself questions: have I been listening to this composer's music in the wrong way? Have I been listening with the wrong ears? Have I been looking for something that is not there? Have I, in effect, been looking in the wrong direction? This is not Austro-German music; it is comprehensively French, with a completely different aesthetic.
With new ears I listened yet again, and something struck me forcibly: is, in fact, the style the substance in this music? All that elegance, refinement, polish and sophistication: is it possible that this is not a veneer but the core of Saint-Saens's very French art? It was like a window opening, allowing the light to stream in. By sheer coincidence another new Saint-Saens disc has landed on my desk. I'm off to test these thoughts against it, and I'll get it reviewed for the CD slot a week on Sunday.
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