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SaleSaint-Saens: Music For Wind Ensemble / Markl, Royal Air Force College Band
Naxos · Feb 2021CD$19.99$9.99 -
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Saint-Saens: Organ Symphony; Danse Macabre; Le Carnaval des Animaux / Ormandy
Sony Masterworks · Aug 2015CD$11.98 -
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Saint-Saëns: Piano Works, Paraphrases & Transcriptions, Vol. 2 / Gray
Divine Art · Jan 2022CD$26.99 -
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Neeme Jarvi Conducts Saint-Saens / Jarvi, Royal Scottish National Orchestra
Chandos · Jun 2012SACD$21.99
Saint-Saens: Sinfonische Dichtungen
Prospero Classical
CD
$23.99
May 19, 2023
On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the death of the important French composer Camille Saint-Saëns, the Basel Symphony Orchestra under its conductor Ivor Bolton had set itself the goal of giving its audience an insight into the composer's well-known and lesser-known symphonic works. In addition to the symphonies and various concertos, the orchestra has explicitly focused on the symphonic poems of the composer of the "Carnival of the Animals". For the first time, these works as well as the well-known "Bacchanale" from the opera "Samson et Dalila" have been recorded according to Hugh Macdonalds' new critical edition published by Bärenreiter. Camille Saint-Saëns - who also performed several times at the Stadtcasino Basel - was very old when he died in 1921 at the age of 86. He had an eventful life behind him. He lost his father when he was still a baby. He entered the world of music as a child prodigy. Later, as an adult, his two young sons die. After the death of his mother shortly afterwards, he dissolves his flat in Paris, gives away and sells his furniture and goes into hiding. He spends fifteen years in a travel fever in ship cabins and train compartments. He travels from North Africa to China, from Russia to America - and composes. With the four works he composed between 1872 and 1877, "Le Rouet d'Omphale", "Phaéton", "Danse macabre" and "La Jeunesse d'Hercule", Camille Saint-Saëns placed himself firmly in the tradition of Hector Berlioz, who had ushered in a new era in France with his "Symphonie fantastique", premiered in 1830, as well as the symphonic poems of Franz Liszt, who had established the genre in Germany. During Saint-Saëns' lifetime, his four "Poèmes symphoniques" became repertoire works that were heard around the world, but only the "Danse macabre" has remained in the concert programme to this day. This work with its pictorial depiction of a witches' sabbath - though clearly ironically broken - was a true scandalous piece at the time of its creation, not so far removed from Stravinsky's Sacre in this respect. His own mother fainted with indignation at the premiere and the hall audience went wild. In Germany, Carl Reinecke refused to perform the work because he considered the pictorial representation of skeletons by means of a xylophone immoral. Compared to the "Danse macabre", "Phaéton" is certainly more moderate. It describes Phaéton's high-spirited ride on Helios' sun chariot, which of course - danger of crashing! - does not end well. A rousing and concise orchestral piece. The critical first editions, which have just been published by Bärenreiter within the "Œuvres complètes instrumentales", offer the opportunity for new interpretations of these works on a reliable source basis. About the orchestra: the Süddeutsche Zeitung describes it perfectly: "You only have to experience the Basel Symphony Orchestra with its principal conductor Ivor Bolton once to know what this fabulous orchestra is capable of." Whether in its own concert series, at the Stadtcasino Basel or in guest performances at home and abroad, the innovative ensemble repeatedly confirms its high level of sound culture. The Briton Ivor Bolton has been the orchestra's principal conductor since the 2016/2017 season. Conductors with whom the Basel Symphony Orchestra has been closely associated include personalities such as Johannes Brahms, Felix Weingartner, Gustav Mahler, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Gary Bertini, Walter Weller, Armin Jordan, Horst Stein, Otto Klemperer, Nello Santi, Pierre Boulez, Mario Venzago and Dennis Russell Davies.
The Beecham Collection - Saint-Saens: Samson et Dalila, Op.
SOMM Recordings
CD
$20.99
Apr 17, 2026
At the Festival Hall, on 24 April, 1960, an 80-year-old Sir Thomas Beecham gave what would turn out to be the final concert he conducted with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London. SOMM Recordings is releasing the last work on that historic programme as part of it's continuing Beecham Collection of live recordings-the Bacchanale from the opera Samson et Dalila by Camille Saint-Saens. Unbeknownst to them, the audience's tumultuous reception of this performance proved to be a farewell to Beecham on the London concert platform. In June 1960, he suffered a cerebral thrombosis and never conducted again; he died on 8 March 1961. Jon Tolansky, a former musician at the Royal Opera House who has since specialised in making documentary features on composers and performers, recalls hearing this programme as an 11-year-old. "I had never heard anything remotely like it," he says, "as Sir Thomas, now standing fully upright on the podium, became a generator of electric lightning and as the Royal Festival Hall seemed to be shaking, most especially in the last two minutes or so, in a catastrophic earthquake." This historic release also includes live recordings of Saint-Saens's First Cello Concerto and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade. Once again, audio restoration is by the renowned audio recording engineer Lani Spahr, whose work has recently been honoured with four Gramophone Magazine Editor's Choice Awards-for Bruckner from the Archives Vols I and IV and, more recently, Bliss, the Composer Conducts and E.J. Moeran's music conducted by Sir Adrian Boult. Beecham was always what The Times called "a quietly persistent advocate for Saint-Saens," and he offers attentive support to the 1958 reading of Saint-Saens's First Cello Concerto by Ukrainian-born soloist Mischel Cherniavsky. The concerto is in one continuous movement with three tightly structured sections sharing interrelated ideas. Cherniavsky came from a family of nine musically gifted children, and he played in the Cherniavsky Trio with two of his brothers from 1901 until 1934, after which he was mostly based in London and France. The live performance of Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade on this release was given at the Royal Festival Hall on 21 March, 1957. This fell right in the middle of recording sessions when the orchestra was immersed in the piece for three days, which goes some way to explaining the glorious quality of the playing in the concert. What Rimsky-Korsakov described as the "various fairy-tale wonders" he had in mind when composing the work come across in Beecham's live performance with a freshness and brilliance that make for an unforgettable experience. A 24-year-old Steven Staryk became leader of the RPO shortly before these recordings, earning the title "king of concertmasters" from The Strad magazine. About his performance on this concert The Times wrote "the solo playing of the new leader, Mr Steven Staryk, must have due acknowledgment."
Saint-saens: Samson Et Dalila
Sony Masterworks
CD
$16.98
Oct 09, 2015
Drawn from the worldwide catalog holdings of Sony Classical, which includes both the Columbia/CBS and RCA Victor label imprints, the SONY Classical Originals, SONY Classical Masters Singles and Box Sets, SONY Opera and Opera House series offer an extensive selection of highly desirable and collectible pressed import editions, smartly-designed and graphically-pleasing, featuring the most sought after recordings by the world's preeminent, legendary artists both past and present, with many titles newly re-mastered in 24bit High Resolution Audio.
Anita
Sony Masterworks
CD
$6.49
$12.98
Save 50%
Apr 13, 2018
Anita Rachvelishvili became internationally known on the opening night of the La Scala season in 2009, when she sang the title role in Carmen opposite Jonas Kaufmann under the baton of Daniel Barenboim. This performance marked her debut in the role and was televised all over the world. She has since debuted this signature role at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Bavarian State Opera in Munich, State Opera in Berlin, Seattle Opera, San Francisco Opera, Teatro Regio in Turin, Canadian Opera Company, and Arena di Verona. The present album features some of the most popular and enduring opera arias in the mezzo Repertoire: two arias from Carmen, operatic favorites such as Saint-Saens Mon coeur s'ouvre à ta voix (Samson et Dalila) and Verdi's O don fatale (Don Carlo), in addition to a rarity: the Cavatina of King Tamar, from Georgian composer Dmitry Arakishvili's opera The Legend of Shota Rustaveli, demonstrating her Georgian heritage.
Saint-Saens: Music For Wind Ensemble / Markl, Royal Air Force College Band
Naxos
CD
$9.99
$19.99
Save 50%
Feb 12, 2021
Camille Saint-Saens was involved in every aspect of French music during his long lifetime, and his frequent travels led to a fascinating mixture of Western music with Moorish and African elements in works such as Orient et Occident and the Suite algérienne. Saint-Saëns wrote few works for winds, but the grand biblical themes of Samson et Dalila, patriotic military traditions and the dignity of a British coronation all lend themselves perfectly to arrangement. In The Carnival of the Animals, the roaring lions are superbly evocative; while his perspectives on English and Scottish dances in ballet movements from Henry VIII are brilliantly imaginative.
Saint-Saens: Ascanio Ballet & Overtures / Märkl, Malmö Symphony
Naxos
CD
$19.99
Nov 22, 2019
Saint-Saëns’ operatic works contain instrumental music of vivacity and charm but have been undeservedly overlooked. Ascanio contains a substantial and elaborate divertissement that fellow composer Reynaldo Hahn termed ‘the entire Renaissance in a few pages’. Les Barbares, a tale of conquest and revenge, includes a vivid Prologue and joyful ballet, while La Princesse jaune with its pentatonic writing, and La Jota aragonese laced with Spanish vitality, show the composer at his most generously carefree. Jun Markl is a highly-respected interpreter of core Germanic repertoire and has become known for his refined and idiomatic explorations of the French Impressionists. His long-standing relationships with the state operas of Vienna, Berlin and Munich, the Semperoper Dresden and the Metropolitan Opera have been complemented by his music directorships of the Orchestre National de Lyon and the MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra. In recognition of his achievements in Lyon, he was honoured in 2012 with the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Märkl has an extensive discography – among the over 50 albums he has recorded are the complete Schumann symphonies, works by Mendelssohn and Wagner, Ravel, Messiaen, and a highly-acclaimed Debussy set with the Orchestre National de Lyon. He is currently working on a cycle of works by Saint-Saëns and Hosokawa.
REVIEW:
Of Camille Saint-Saens's eleven operas only one, Samson et Dalila, still enjoys a place in the international repertoire. That was premiered in 1877, three years before Ascanio. That opera's thirty-minute ballet suite contains much that is pleasingly tuneful and suitably pictorial. The Les Barbares Prologue included here has the length and content of a movement from a very serious symphony. There is still more more music here, and all of it is played with the high quality of performance we have come to expect from the Malmo orchestra.
– David's Review Corner (David Denton)
REVIEW:
Of Camille Saint-Saens's eleven operas only one, Samson et Dalila, still enjoys a place in the international repertoire. That was premiered in 1877, three years before Ascanio. That opera's thirty-minute ballet suite contains much that is pleasingly tuneful and suitably pictorial. The Les Barbares Prologue included here has the length and content of a movement from a very serious symphony. There is still more more music here, and all of it is played with the high quality of performance we have come to expect from the Malmo orchestra.
– David's Review Corner (David Denton)
Saint-Saens: Organ Symphony; Danse Macabre; Le Carnaval des Animaux / Ormandy
Sony Masterworks
CD
$11.98
Aug 28, 2015
If you’re looking for an inexpensive single disc containing Saint-Saëns’ most popular orchestral works, then you can’t miss with this collection. I often wonder if Ormandy had not gone on to remake his core repertoire with RCA, in mostly duller performances and lousy sound, whether his reputation would be as low as it is at present. There’s some absolutely sensational music making on this disc, and to prove it I offer three sound samples for you to consider.
First, this is one of the great “Organ” Symphonies, not perhaps quite as exciting as Munch, but awfully close, with amazingly fine playing from the Philadelphians and astonishingly good sonics for the period (1962). E. Power Biggs is the excellent soloist, offering a rendition of the organ part that’s unusually well articulated rhythmically. Consider the opening of the finale: bold and quite striking in its firmly phrased, grand reprise of the symphony’s motto theme (first sound sample). Ormandy never matched this performance, and he re-recorded this symphony at least twice.
The symphony may be fine, but it’s the couplings that really close the deal. The Marche militaire française has plenty of swagger, and these versions of the Bacchanale from Samson et Dalila and the Danse macabre are simply the best available. Ormandy does a little light restoring of the former, and it matters not a bit–this performance just drips sex and couldn’t be more wildly uninhibited (second sound sample). As for the Danse, just listen to those Philadelphia violins sing out the main theme (third sound sample). It doesn’t get any better than that.
The Carnival of the Animals is no mere make-weight bonus. Heard in its chamber scoring, the performers make an impressive list: Philippe Entremont and Gaby Casadesus on pianos, Régis Pasquier and Yan-Pascal Tortelier on violins, Gérard Caussé on viola, and no less than the young Yo-Yo Ma on cello. Taken together, you have a perfect disc of Saint-Saëns favorites in performances as good or better than any available. And it’s all offered at budget price. Pure gold.
– ClassicsToday (David Hurwitz)
First, this is one of the great “Organ” Symphonies, not perhaps quite as exciting as Munch, but awfully close, with amazingly fine playing from the Philadelphians and astonishingly good sonics for the period (1962). E. Power Biggs is the excellent soloist, offering a rendition of the organ part that’s unusually well articulated rhythmically. Consider the opening of the finale: bold and quite striking in its firmly phrased, grand reprise of the symphony’s motto theme (first sound sample). Ormandy never matched this performance, and he re-recorded this symphony at least twice.
The symphony may be fine, but it’s the couplings that really close the deal. The Marche militaire française has plenty of swagger, and these versions of the Bacchanale from Samson et Dalila and the Danse macabre are simply the best available. Ormandy does a little light restoring of the former, and it matters not a bit–this performance just drips sex and couldn’t be more wildly uninhibited (second sound sample). As for the Danse, just listen to those Philadelphia violins sing out the main theme (third sound sample). It doesn’t get any better than that.
The Carnival of the Animals is no mere make-weight bonus. Heard in its chamber scoring, the performers make an impressive list: Philippe Entremont and Gaby Casadesus on pianos, Régis Pasquier and Yan-Pascal Tortelier on violins, Gérard Caussé on viola, and no less than the young Yo-Yo Ma on cello. Taken together, you have a perfect disc of Saint-Saëns favorites in performances as good or better than any available. And it’s all offered at budget price. Pure gold.
– ClassicsToday (David Hurwitz)
Saint-Saëns: Piano Works, Paraphrases & Transcriptions, Vol. 2 / Gray
Divine Art
CD
$26.99
Jan 14, 2022
Saint-Saëns excelled as a composer, conductor, pianist and organist – his composition output is enormous, reaching over 160 titles of which many are substantial – operas, ballets, symphonies – yet today much of his work remains neglected and he is known by a few works only: the Organ Symphony, Samson et Dalila, Danse Macabre and Carnival of the Animals. His original piano pieces are generally light ‘salon’ works but are nonetheless delightful and well formed. His major contribution to the piano works is the equally neglected body of transcriptions (of his own works and those of others) where he was sadly eclipsed by the more outgoing and promotion-minded Franz Liszt. This album and its companion include a number of first recordings, introducing a large body of keyboard gems to a new audience. Volume 2 is divided into two sections: transcriptions from Cantata and Oratorio and original ‘occasional pieces,’ transcriptions of two works by Luis de Milan and the Douze Transcriptions (of which there 13!) of works by J. S. Bach. Antony Gray is a London-based Australian pianist and teacher with numerous acclaimed recordings to his name on ABC and other labels including a 3-album set of Bach transcriptions and a 5-album set containing the entire piano output of Poulenc. He has premiered many new pieces written for him and has often appeared on radio in the UK and Australia.
Neeme Jarvi Conducts Saint-Saens / Jarvi, Royal Scottish National Orchestra
Chandos
SACD
$21.99
Jun 26, 2012
SAINT-SAËNS Samson et Dalila: Bacchanale. Le Rouet d’Omphale. Phaëton. Danse macabre. La Jeunesse d’Hercule. Suite algérienne: Marche militaire française. La Princesse jaune: Overture. Une nuit à Lisbonne. Spartacus. Marche du couronnement • Neeme Järvi, cond; Royal Scottish Nat’l O • CHANDOS 5104 (SACD: 77:40)
Here in spectacular multichannel surround sound is a brand-new recording of all four Saint-Saëns tone poems plus a stewpot of shorter orchestral works, some of them popular favorites, others, less widely known.
Over the course of five years, between 1872 and 1877, Saint-Saëns composed four tone poems, three of them drawn from Greek mythology: Le Rouet d’Omphale, Phaëton , and La Jeunesse d’Hercule . The fourth, though third in order of composition, and most famous is Danse macabre , a romantic horror that trades Greek gods for gamboling ghouls.
Omphale’s Spinning Wheel is often said to be the very first French tone poem, though note author Roger Nichols points out that Franck beat Saint-Saëns to the punch by almost a quarter of a century with his symphonic poem Ce qu’on entend sur la montagne of 1848. According to Saint-Saëns’s own preface to the score, the subject of the story is feminine seduction and the triumphant struggle of weakness against strength. To atone for a murder Hercules is ordered by the goddess Hera to serve as a slave to the Lydian Queen, Omphale. Nichols spares the reader the more indelicate description of the emasculated and feminized Hercules kneeling and spinning at the Queen’s feet clad in women’s clothing. In light of Saint-Saëns’s fetish for hosting lavish parties dressed in drag, one has to wonder if the legend of Hercules and Omphale didn’t hold some special fascination for him.
Phaëton , Saint-Saëns’s second tone poem, flirts with the subject of father-son relationships and the sometimes tragic consequences that result when the boy grows old enough to challenge the paternal authority figure. Phaëton , son of Helios the sun god, seeks to prove his manhood by piloting the sun chariot across the heavens. So, in effect, he takes the family Ford out for a spin. But he’s not yet the man he thinks he is. Losing control of the chariot’s horses, he draws the sun too close to the earth. To prevent the solar express from crashing and wreaking further catastrophe, Zeus strikes it with a thunderbolt, incinerating the vehicle and killing Phaëton in the process. A sidebar to the story is that the chariot’s near-miss trajectory across the Sahara scorched the land and explains why the Ethiopians are black.
Next we have Saint-Saëns’s answer to Berlioz’s witches, Mussorgsky’s demons, and Liszt’s diableries, the Danse macabre . But leave it to Saint-Saëns to paint his portrait of the dancing dead, to paraphrase Ogden Nash’s verse, as skeletons in the museum hall gathering at midnight for a ball. The scordatura-tuned violin, xylophone, contorted Dies irae , and android-like rhythmic repetitions caused quite a stir, prompting Debussy, one of Saint-Saëns’s most outspoken critics, to declare years later that the piece gave him hope that Saint-Saëns was a very great composer after all.
The three foregoing tone poems are among Saint-Saëns’s more frequently heard and recorded works and, in fact, a number of recordings, some more recent than others, have included two of them in one combination or another on the same disc. Less often does one find all three, and only one other recording I’m familiar with—a composite Saint-Saëns collection assembled from one or more other releases featuring Charles Dutoit leading the Philharmonia and Royal Philharmonic orchestras—includes the composer’s fourth and final tone poem as well. Having stripped Hercules of his manhood in Omphale’s Spinning Wheel , Saint-Saëns rehabilitates him in La Jeunesse d’Hercule . Both dramatically and musically, the work is the weakest of the four, which no doubt explains its poor showing in the listings. The story, if it can be called that, involves no action but is rather a depiction of the young hero’s internal philosophical struggle in choosing between a life of pleasure-seeking and a life of virtue. He chooses the latter. It has been noted that the Lisztian tone poem model was a strong influence on Saint-Saëns’s score.
The remaining pieces that fill out the disc are, in some cases quite well known, like the Bacchanal from the composer’s opera Samson et Dalila and the Marche militaire française , which comes from the Suite algérienne . Other pieces are not well known at all but are hardly insubstantial. The Spartacus overture, for example, is a 13-minute score that was written in 1863 but remained unpublished until 1900. It’s a stand-alone grand concert overture that contains some of Saint-Saëns’s most dramatically urgent music.
On a trip to Portugal in 1880, Saint-Saëns dashed off a one-act comic opera with a title that would no doubt offend today’s politically correct sensibilities, La Princesse jaune , about a Japanese princess transplanted through opera magic to the Netherlands. The Lisbon audience apparently loved it, and back in Paris the Opéra-Comique gave four performances of it before the curtain came down on it for good. I note a single recording of the work listed by ArkivMusic, a 1996 live performance from Lugano. Heard here is the six-minute overture to the opera, which provides a taste of what Saint-Saëns must have thought Japanese music sounded like. Don’t expect Puccini.
During the same visit that produced La Princesse jaune , Saint-Saëns scribbled out the three-and-a-half-minute musical watercolor Une nuit à Lisbonne , which he dedicated to Portuguese King Luiz.
The story behind the Marche du couronnement put me in mind of Thomas Beecham’s plaint about British orchestras employing so many third-rate conductors when there were so many second-rate English ones to choose from. Which raises the question, why would the Brits choose a French composer, Saint-Saëns, to write a march for the coronation of Edward VII? Apparently, they didn’t. Saint-Saëns took it entirely upon himself to compose the piece, which, according to the program note, caused a flurry of diplomatic activity at the ambassadorial level between the two countries. For the march, Saint-Saëns borrowed a tune from his opera Henry VIII . If you shouldn’t expect Puccini in Saint-Saëns’s La Princesse jaune , don’t expect Elgar in his Coronation March.
This is mainly a fun disc, but a useful one as well in gathering together all four of Saint-Saëns’s tone poems, plus a generous selection of some of his less familiar orchestral works. It’s also distinguished by outstanding playing from the Royal Scottish National Orchestra brilliantly led by veteran conductor Neeme Järvi, and as an added bonus, it’s recorded in stunning multichannel sound. Enthusiastically recommended.
FANFARE: Jerry Dubins
