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Crescendo

The commemoration of the centenary of the death of Camille Saint-Saëns in 2021 may have finished in purely temporal terms, but the party continues! Antony Gray, an Australian pianist born and trained in the state of Victoria, obtained a scholarship in the early 1980s to continue his studies in London where he joined Joyce Rathbone and Geoffrey Parsons. Established in the British capital, he has performed many times, in concert or on the radio, as a soloist or in chamber music, to promote composers like Enesco, Dussek or Martinu, but also contemporaries like Williamson or Carmichael. For the ABC Classics label, he has recorded a series of discs on which we find in particular the major pieces by Brahms, a complete Poulenc, but also an album devoted to transcriptions of Bach’s pages by composers of several nationalities, including a large number of English (Bax, Vaughan Williams, Bantock, Ireland, Bliss…).

Antony Gray offers two two-disc albums devoted to the piano work of the composer of Carnival of the Animals. Two albums made up of previously unreleased songs and rarities, mostly rarely seen, which give to the remarkable keyboard virtuoso that Saint-Saëns was, a very diversified and endearing image. While most of these works were recorded in 2013 for the Bach and Milan transcriptions, and in 2015 for the other pieces, Opus 89 Africa, whose version for piano and orchestra is famous, was added in August 2021.

This collection is a great contribution to the knowledge of Saint-Saëns’ piano output. About fifty tracks, spread over the four discs, offer a panorama in four themes. The first focuses on opera and ballet. In this last area, we begin with four excerpts from Javotte, which is the composer’s only original ballet, apart from the moments inserted in his operas. It is an 1895 commission from the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels, ultimately premiered in Lyon the following year. This light amorous intrigue in a village context of parties and balls was the subject of an orchestral recording by Marco Polo in 2004. Note here the joy of a bourrée or the tenderness of a pas de deux that the piano highlights. This is followed by a Caprice d’Alceste after Gluck’s ballet, which dates from 1867 and is set in a refined context.

Make way for opera arrangements, with two scenes from Ascanio (1890), the Scene of the Beggar and the Dance of Love, the grandiose Final Quartet of Henry VIII (1883) and two excerpts from Proserpine (1887): the Prelude to Act II and a Pavane whose piano reduction is by Philippe Bellenot (1860-1928), a composer and organist whose son was to be a godchild of Saint-Saëns. In addition, there are arrangements of the elegant Waltz of the Prophet by Meyerbeer followed by the very virtuosic Scherzo of Les Pêcheurs de Perles by Bizet, which takes up several themes from the opera of this close friend of Saint-Saëns. There is still to follow a concert paraphrase on Thaïs by Massenet, dedicated to the latter’s wife, and written between the first version of 1894 and its revision in 1898, with the magnetic Meditation as a main line, and another fantasy on Mandolinata by Emile Paladilhe (1844-1926), a musician completely forgotten nowadays; it is a page based on a popular song, which evokes a Roman memory.

This allusion to Italy opens the door to the second disc of the first album, devoted to “Places”, thus illustrating the many trips that have marked the composer’s life. Here, several works are quite well known, starting with the Algerian Suite of 1880, which has been the subject of several arrangements including a version for two pianos (Fauré wrote one for piano four hands) and other instrumental combinations. Saint-Saëns often played in concert the third part, Rêverie du soir, which he recorded in 1905; this discographic reference was used by Antony Gray. The valiant French Military March follows. The Rhapsodie d’Auvergne of 1884 and the fantasy Africa (1891) are also well known, in their version with orchestra; they lose none of their flavor or originality by being reserved for the piano alone.

We know that Saint-Saëns was an extraordinary virtuoso (“a lightning master”, wrote Berlioz in a letter). We can realize it with these familiar pages, but also with the Tango taken from the dramatic scene Lola (1900), which recalls Albéniz, the Elegy written in memory of Alexis de Castillon, who died in 1873 at the age of thirty-five, the barcarolle A Night in Lisbon, dedicated to the King of Portugal after a concert honored by his presence, the Wedding Benediction, originally written for organ, or the clever Fantasy on the Russian national anthem of 1904. We will note another tribute to Paladilhe, the transcription of the song La Islena, a Habanero dedicated in 1871 to the Venezuelan concert performer Teresa Carreño (1853-1917).

The oratorio, the cantata and the occasional pieces form the framework of the first disc of the second album. There are two long works, in particular the sixteen minutes of the Improvisation on the Beethoven-Cantata by Liszt, which the latter had written for the inauguration of the monument erected in Bonn in 1845 and reworked for the centenary of the birth of the master. That same year, 1870, Saint-Saëns composed a grandiose transcription in which we find themes from the Archduke Trio or the first movement of the Eroica Symphony. Gounod and his cantata Gallia were paraphrased the following year, just after the London premiere of the work by this close friend. In thirteen minutes, Saint-Saëns magnifies the original score, written in the style of Victorian times, which evokes the sufferings of France during the 1870 war against Germany.

The Prelude from his own oratorio Le Déluge of 1875 has been the subject of an edition for solo piano where the colorful influence of Berlioz is felt. A tribute to the latter is extended with a transcription of the Easter Hymn from The Damnation of Faust. Composed when Saint-Saëns was only twenty, it greatly pleased Berlioz, who appreciated the talent of his young colleague. Soon after, they would publish together a French edition of Gluck’s operas.

Occasional pieces are added to the picture: the charming Sérénade from 1865, first planned for piano, harmonium and violin, then transcribed in various forms, including with voice, and even for orchestra; two Bagatelles Légères from 1858, a Lullaby from 1896 for a birth in the friendly circle, and a Chant du soir from 1865 after Schumann’s original, of which Saint-Saëns would also offer an orchestral version in 1872. A multicolored fan…

The fourth disc is reserved for “the return to sobriety and formal purity via the masters of the Baroque era, Bach first” (Karol Beffa, Saint-Saëns au fil de la plume, 2021, Première Loges, p.11). Antony Gray, who wrote the program notes for this anthology (about twenty detailed pages), explains that the Frenchman works on his cycle of transcriptions twice, in 1861 then in 1873, and that he chose extracts from several cantatas, two partitas, and two sonatas for violin, interested as he was by the impetus given by Mendelssohn, then by Schumann or Liszt for the work of the Cantor.

Each of the Twelve Transcriptions after Bach is dedicated to one of his students at the Niedermeyer School where he was teaching at the time. One of them was Gabriel Fauré, who liked to say he was “the favorite”. Saint-Saëns got into the habit of interspersing his concerts with one or another subtle transcription of these Bach pages. Two reminiscences of the Spaniard Luis de Milan, originally from Valence (before 1500-1561), are also noteworthy, transcriptions of two Fantasies for lute that Saint-Saëns wrote during a stay in Las Palmas in 1898, thus paying homage to this distinguished composer of the 16th century.

We must be grateful to Antony Gray for having designed this eclectic, original and interesting program, insofar as it paints a varied pianistic portrait of the composer of the Danse Macabre, covering several musical fields. His interpretation, recorded in England in the Menuhin Hall in Surrey, is warm, involved and attentive to the works’ textures. It sheds additional light on this prolific creator and the diversity of his inspiration. It is perhaps not a priority to discover Saint-Saëns, but necessary to deepen our understanding of this personality who has not yet revealed all the secrets of his prodigious imagination. Sound: 8.5 Booklet: 10 Repertoire: 9 Interpretation: 9

—Jean Lacroix