Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921)
Music for Two Pianos
Contents listed after review
Artur Pizarro, Ludovico Troncanetti (pianos)
rec. 2024, Twyford Mill, Buckinghamshire, UK.
Somm Recordings SOMMCD0693 [75]
Camille Saint-Saëns was one of the world’s great musical prodigies. His mother made him wait until he was a mature ten-year-old before he made his concerto debut when he played Mozart’s 15th and Beethoven’s 3rd piano concertos in one concert. He was lauded as a pianist and organist and composer. As the latter, he has suffered by having written some of the most popular works in the musical canon to the detriment of his other music. The Organ Symphony, Piano Concerto No2, Cello Concerto No 1, Violin Concerto No1 etc. have never left the repertoire, but there has always been the suspicion, probably spurred on by Carnival of the Animals which was not published until after his death, that his music is not entirely serious. Indeed, his music is very listener-friendly, and he did have a sense of humour, but he could write a good tune; he wrote many up to Opus 169 shortly before his death and his writing in all genres is never less than masterly. He was a stickler for a sound foundation in musical technique, what Vaughan Williams called “the stodge” of music.
There is surprisingly little music for two pianos, there being far more for piano duets (two players at one piano). Most of the two piano works are collected here, though I would like to hear the late arrangements he made of Chopin’s Bb minor Sonata and the Liszt Piano Sonata. They seem curious works to arrange, but I am intrigued. The programme on this release comprises original works for two pianos alongside selections transcribed by Saint-Saëns from his orchestral pieces.
The two pianists, Artur Pizarro and Ludovico Troncanetti, made their piano duo debut in Lisbon in 2023 with a recital featuring the repertoire on this album. Pizarro, the elder and better known of the two, won the 1990 Leeds International Piano Competition amongst others and tours internationally. Ludovico Troncanetti, some twenty-three years younger than Pizarro, is a graduate of the Milan Conservatory and actively involved in reviving the works of the Russian pianist and composer Anton Rubinstein.
The main work on the disc, and the composer’s main work in the genre, is the Variations on a Theme of Beethoven. Written in 1874, it became something of a hit, though over the years its popularity has waned. This may be due in part to it not being interesting, but also because the popularity of concerts with two pianos declined so much in the twentieth century.
The Variations were written for the husband-and-wife team of Alfred and Marie Jaëll (the latter of whom had been the dedicatee of Saint-Saëns brilliant first piano concerto). The theme used comes from the trio section of the minuet from Beethoven’s Piano Sonata in E-flat, Op 31 No 3. Out of all the music by Beethoven Saint-Saens could have chosen, it is odd he chose this because it is not a particularly interesting theme. Perhaps Saint-Saëns thought he could improve on it or at least elaborate. In any event, it is pure Saint-Saëns.
After a hesitant introduction, Saint-Saëns introduces the theme, the phrases split between the two pianists. From there on, he subjects the material to all the standard variation techniques. There is one with running semiquaver arpeggios, a slightly chromatic more sedately Romantic variation, a variation that inverts the theme. He has some fun with a variation with rapid repeated semiquaver chords. In all of this intricate detail, the two players show themselves perfectly matched in coordination. The unison chords are perfectly together and there is a nice stereophonic effect when material passes between the two which the engineers capture well. At the midpoint, there is an Alkanesque funeral march which seems to have its tongue decidedly in its cheek. The work ends with an impressive fugue, a form of which Saint Saëns was a master, based on the large initial leaps in the tune. His technique is on show, and he does all sorts of clever things with inversions and additional counterpoint, but before it can get too heavy, he finishes the work with a lively scherzo and an emphatic perfect cadence. I don’t think we could hope for a better performance, but it is hardly great music. From a musicological point of view, it is very clever but at twenty minutes, for me, it does outstay its welcome.
None of the other works on the disc outstays its welcome, but as none lasts more than ten minutes, that is not difficult. They are all wonderful salon pieces written to give pleasure and entertain, something classical music lost sight of in the twentieth century.
Le Rouet d’Omphale(Omphale’s Spinning-Wheel) and Marche héroïqueare better known in their orchestral guise but had their premieres on two pianos. The first is very detailed and could easily have come over as cluttered and messy, but in Pizaro and Troncanetti’s hands, it works very well on the instruments, its gossamer-light, filigree writing being luminously played.
The Polonaise is a wonderful homage to Chopin without actually quoting any of his music. It may be a Polish dance, but I do hear a touch of Gottschalk’s Caribbean. Great fun! Saint-Saëns often spent the winter months in North Africa; indeed, he died in Algiers in December 1921. During an 1889 sojourn in Las Palmas in Northern Africa, he began composing his Scherzo for two pianos. Curiously, it seems to anticipate some of Debussy’s piano writing with its swirling interlocking patterns. It is a tough work to bring off and even the composer warned it would be difficult to sightread. There is clearly no sightreading here and its technical difficulties are thrown off lightly in a very musical performance. The Caprice arabe, and the virtuosic Caprice héroïque end the disc. The latter leans more towards being capricious than heroic, despite its powerful opening and fugue-like ending. Again, there is some tremendously intricate writing which the duo coordinates beautifully.
As I said above, this type of music largely disappeared in the twentieth century, but it is wonderful to see two such brilliant advocates bringing it back to life so vividly.
Paul RW Jackson
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Contents
Le Rouet d’Omphale, Op 31 (1871)
Marche héroïque in E-flat major, Op 34 (1870)
Variations on a theme by Beethoven, Op 35 (1874)
Polonaise, Op 77(1886)
Scherzo, Op 87 (1889)
Caprice arabe, Op 96 (1894)
Caprice héroïque, Op 106 (1898)
