SAINT-SAËNS Piano Quartet in B Flat Major Piano Quintet in a Minor Barcarolle in F Major

SAINT-SAËNS Piano Quartet in B flat major Piano Quintet in A minor Barcarolle in F major Fine Arts Quartet • Cristina Ortiz, Piano Camille Saint-Saëns (1835–1921) confines itself principally to sustained notes, and the piano triplet ornamentation. The F major second movement opens Piano Quartet in B flat major, Op. 41 • Piano Quintet in A minor, Op. 14 was played by Louis Diémer. Saint-Saëns wisely provided with a hymn-like theme for the piano, answered by the another version, scored for violin, viola, cello and piano, the muted strings in D minor. The Scherzo follows without a Barcarolle in F major, Op. 108 arrangement played here. This starts with the swaying break and in the key of A minor, propelled forward by the Like Mozart and Mendelssohn, Camille Saint-Saëns Debussy was dead, Fauré was near the end of his life, and movement of the gondola, introduced now by viola and continued rapid semiquaver figuration of the piano part. The showed remarkable precocity as a child, first shown in piano Stravinsky had already, for some eight years, scandalized cello. The music increases in intensity, as the boat moves cello starts the finale with a long fugal theme, answered by lessons from his great-aunt at the age of two and a half. He Paris with his Rite of Spring. Saint-Saëns continued to into rougher water, which soon subsides into something the viola, then the second violin and finally the first violin, coupled with his musical interests a wide general compose, although Ravel unkindly suggested that in war- calmer. leaving the piano to enter in accompaniment before offering enthusiasm for learning of all kinds, literary and scientific, time he might have been more productively employed. The Piano Quintet in A minor, Op. 14, was written in its own version of the thematic material, at first in left-hand and was, as a composer, to produce music of many genres Abroad he retained something more of his earlier fame. 1854-55 and dedicated to the composerʼs great-aunt octaves, answered by the right hand in imitation, a canon during a career that spanned the second half of the Once known as the French Mendelssohn, he had written Madame Masson née Gayard. It was given its first public at the fifth. The work ends in triumph, a very considerable nineteenth century and the first two decades of the music that appealed to audiences in much the same way as performance ten years later. Like Schumannʼs Piano achievement in a twenty-year-old com-poser and testimony twentieth, starting in a period that knew Mendelssohn and his predecessorʼs, for its clarity of texture and its attractive Quintet, which was presumably unknown to Saint-Saëns to his own ability as a pianist. It might be added that the continuing beyond the death of Debussy. powers of invention, calculated to delight rather than to at the time, the work offers a demanding piano part, with the publishers in 1865 included an optional double-bass part for Saint-Saëns was born in Paris in 1835, the son of a clerk shock. piano often in the rôle of a concerto solo instrument. the third and fourth movements of the quintet and that Saint- in the government service, who died shortly after the birth Saint-Saëns wrote the second of his two piano quartets, Nevertheless, as the quintet proceeds the strings seem to Saëns later performed it with orchestral strings, a of his only child. He was cared for by his mother and her the Piano Quartet in B flat major, Op. 41, in 1875 and gave come more into their own. The first movement opens with recognition of the nature and technical demands of the adoptive aunt, whose husband had recently died. It was the first performance on 8th March of that year at the Salle solemn piano chords and the piano accompanies the piano part. she who gave him his first piano lessons. Thereafter he Pleyel with the violinist Pablo de Sarasate, violist Alfred following string theme, sotto voce, with rippling semiquaver Keith Anderson studied with Camille Stamaty, a pupil of Kalkbrenner and of Turban, leader of the Opéra orchestra, and cellist Léon Mendelssohn, and appeared in public concerts as a child, Jacquart. The establishment of the Société Nationale had having, by the age of ten, memorised all the Beethoven given the necessary stimulus to French chamber music, for Cristina Ortiz piano sonatas. At the same time he showed an aptitude for which an audience now seemed assured, and Saint-Saëns Cristina Ortiz began studies in her native Brazil before moving to Paris and interest in a great variety of subjects. In 1848 he entered was a notable contributor to the genre. The first movement with a scholarship where she worked with Magda Tagliaferro. After the Conservatoire, studying the organ with Benoist and starts with a series of piano chords and continues with an winning a Gold Medal at the third Van Cliburn Competition in Texas, she composition with Halévy, and continuing to show his gifts as air of relative tranquillity, the violin introducing a lyrical went on to complete an invaluable period of tuition under the guidance a pianist, organist and composer. His intellectual curiosity second subject and the whole often suggesting an idiom of the legendary Rudolf Serkin at the Curtis Institute of Music in led him to espouse the cause of contemporary music, as that Fauré was to make his own. The mood changes with Philadelphia before choosing to settle in London. In an international well as the revival of music by earlier composers. the ferocity behind the G minor Andante maestoso, opened career her natural musicality, masterful craftsmanship and timeless A member of the circle of Pauline Viardot, a valued dramatically by the piano and demonstrating the expected commitment to refined playing have ensured her a place among the friend, Saint-Saëns taught briefly at the newly established contrapuntal skill. Its chorale theme is to return later in the most respected pianists in the world. She has performed with leading Ecole Niedermeyer, where his pupils included Gabriel last movement. The rapid D minor third movement pauses orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic, Fauré, a musician with whom he established a close to allow a short violin cadenza and a second cadenza for the and the Chicago Symphony, Philharmonia and Royal Concertgebouw relationship. In 1871, after the disasters of the Franco- piano. It ends at an increased speed, moving to Presto and Orchestras amongst many others, and has collaborated with con- Prussian war, he was instrumental in the foundation of the then Prestissimo. The finale starts in the same key, includes ductors such as Neeme Järvi, Mariss Jansons, Kurt Masur, André Société Nationale de Musique, with its aim of propagating quotations from themes from the first and second Previn and David Zinman. Beyond the platform, Cristina Ortiz has French music, Ars Gallica. His great-aunt died in 1872 and movement, and duly returns to the key of B flat major with recorded some thirty albums featuring a wide range of repertoire on three years later he contracted a marriage that came to an which the work had started. EMI Classics, Decca, Collins Classics and, most recently, on Intrada, abrupt end six years later, after the earlier death of his two The Barcarolle, Op. 108, was written in 1897 and was Naxos and BIS. Between recitals and concerto performances, she is a sons. The death of his mother in 1888 left him alone and he curiously scored for violin, cello, harmonium and piano. It Sussie Ahlburg committed teacher, giving master-classes worldwide as well as private spent much of his later life travelling, accompanied by his was first performed at La Trompette, the music society peripatetic lessons. She has recently held workshops at the Hong Kong dog and a loyal manservant. By the time of his own death formed by the amateur enthusiast Emile Lemoine, an Cultural Centre, the Australian National Academy of Music, the National in Algeria in 1921 he had to some extent outlived his repu- organisation strongly supported by Saint-Saëns. On this Centre for the Arts in Mexico, the Tokyo College of Music, and the Per tation at home. In France this was the age now of Les Six. occasion Saint-Saëns played the harmonium, which Piano Solo Festival in Amandola, Italy, as well as throughout Britain. Fine Arts Quartet Camille Saint-Saëns (1835–1921) The Fine Arts Quartet, “one of the gold-plated names in chamber music” (Washington Post), ranks among the most Quatuor en si bémol majeur op. 41 • Quintette pour piano en la mineur op. 14 distinguished ensembles in chamber music today, with an illustrious history of performing success and an extensive Barcarolle op. 108 recording legacy. Founded in Chicago in 1946, and based at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee since 1963, the Quartet is one of the elite few to have recorded and toured internationally for over half a century. Each season, Ralph Comme Mozart et Mendelssohn avant lui, Camille Saint- de sa vie à voyager, accompagné de son chien et dʼun loyal Evans and Efim Boico (who have been playing together for thirty years), Nicolò Eugelmi, and Robert Cohen perform Saëns fut un enfant dʼune remarquable précocité musicale, serviteur. Lorsquʼil sʼéteignit à son tour en Algérie en 1921, worldwide, in such cities as New York, London, Paris, Berlin, Rome, Madrid, Moscow, Tokyo, Beijing, Istanbul, Jerusalem, qui se manifesta alors quʼil nʼavait que deux ans et demi, sa réputation en France sʼétait pour ainsi dire éteinte avant Mexico City, and Toronto. The Quartet has recorded over 200 works.

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