Saint-Saëns: Piano Concerto No. 5 in F major, Op. 103 'Egyptian'

Saint-Saens complete piano concertos on a 2CD Eloquence set presents some truly rare recordings - Campanella's of the Fourth and Tagliaferro's of the Fifth. And while the second is oft-played, this set gives the listener an opportunity to discover the lesser known First and Third. Also included is the first release on CD of Wedding Cake, with Daniel Chorzempa, familiar to all as an organist, playing the piano.

Although Camille Saint-Saëns ranks among the most notable of French composers, he was also one of the leading pianists of his day – a child prodigy whose virtuosic talent continued to delight audiences well into his later years. His piano concertos were written primarily for his own use in concert. Today they occupy a fun and sparkling place in the repertoire.

Full of youthful ambition and recalling Mendelssohn’s lively style, Saint-Saëns’s First Piano Concerto was written when the composer was just 23; another ten years followed before the Second, which is generally considered the masterpiece of the set. Written especially for a concert conducted by Anton Rubinstein, No.2 is certainly Saint-Saëns’s most popular: high in spirits and full of invention, it was soon followed by the Third Piano Concerto of 1869 and much later by the Fourth, whose adventurous and novel five-section structure reveals a mature composer at the height of his career. The Fifth is an exotic-sounding work that was written during the composer’s annual vacation to Egypt in 1895.

Not only do Saint-Saëns’s piano concertos provide evidence of the composer’s developing style, but they illuminate how arresting an artist he must have been in concert. Philippe Entremont has long been admired for his panache in Romantic music, from admired discs of Rachmaninov’s concertos with Ormandy and the Philadelphia in the 1960s to these more modern recordings. Michel Plasson and the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse complete an all-French line-up.

Recorded in 1978–79

After a first dedicated to the School Lazare-Lévy (Tah 556-558 deleted) we are releasing this set illustrating the Schools of Isidore Philipp (Monique de la Bruchollerie, Youra Guller) and Alfred Cortot (Yvonne Lefébure, MagdaTagliaferro) which contains three previously unissued recordings. Furtherùmore it contains two rare documents with the voices of Lefébure recalling Ravel and of Tagliaferro speaking of Chopin. This is a complementary set to the album « Pianistes Françaises I » (Tah 653-4).

Here is an opportunity to experience Richter in a live performance with some unexpected repertoire. This is the first and only time that he performed Gershwin’s jazzy Concerto in F in public. This is a programme of real rarity, not only for admirers of this great pianist.

After the international success of Camille Saint-Saëns’s five piano concertos in two single volumes audite now presents the complete piano concertos as a reissue on double SACD.