CBA Ode to Joy

Program Notes

Saint-Saëns: Violin Concerto No. 3 in B Minor, Op. 61

Camille Saint-Saëns was a child prodigy who amazed both Berlioz and Liszt with his extraordinary talent for both performance (as a virtuoso pianist) and composition. By the age of 5 he was analyzing Mozart’s full orchestral score of “Don Giovanni.” After his official debut at 10, he offered to play, as an encore, any of Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas from memory. At 13, Saint-Saëns entered the Paris Conservatoire, where he wrote his First Symphony two years later, and he went on to become a prize-winning organist and composer before he turned 20. A Renaissance man with diverse interests and talents, Saint-Saëns was an expert in mathematics and keen on the sciences—everything

from archaeology to botany, but particularly astronomy. With the proceeds of his first music publication, he bought a telescope and later became a member of the Astronomical Society of France. In his elder years, he wrote accounts of his travels, a volume of poetry, and a philosophical work. Saint-Saëns also led a full musical life, creating beautifully crafted works in all genres. The last of his five symphonies, which has come to be known as No. 3, the “Organ Symphony,” is one of the cornerstones of 19th-century French orchestral music. Of the 13 operas he composed, “Samson and Delilah” is the only one that survives in the repertoire. Perhaps his best-known work today is one that he disparaged, calling it a musical joke intended only for his friends’ amusement: “Carnival of the Animals.” Saint-Saëns composed his third and last violin concerto for the Spanish virtuoso Pablo de Sarasate. Full of gorgeous melodies, drama, and passion, this work is widely regarded as one of the great concertos of the violin repertoire. The concerto’s final movement, with an energetic Spanish theme, recalls the work’s dedicatee, Sarasate. The finale opens with dramatic cadenza-like passages, followed by a lively tarantella that yields to a beatific chorale melody echoed by the brass. A spectacular coda brings the concerto to a sweeping finish. –Program Note by Sara Su Jones

CBA SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA AND CHORUS 27