Saint-Saëns: Violin Concerto No. 1 in A Major Op. 20

Saint-Saens and Faure, two leading representatives of Late Romanticism, teacher and pupil linked by the same musical ideal. Both of them, with the fire of youth or in their full maturity, produced tender, luminous works. Confronted with Wagnerian mists, they brightened the French musical landscape. At her desk as leader of the Orchestre de chambre de Paris or as soloist, the violinist Deborah Nemtanu presents her vision of the last French Romantics.

Camille Saint-Saëns was a child prodigy, who amazed both Berlioz and Liszt with his extraordinary talent for performance (as a virtuoso pianist) and composition. His Symphony No.1 in A was performed when he was just 15 years old, and was followed by a succession of beautifully crafted works in all genres – concertos (5 for piano, 3 for violin and 2 for cello) and a total of five symphonies, plus a large chamber and operatic output. All his works reveal a cast-iron grip of classical form and balance, while his orchestration displays clarity and colour. His approach to the concerto, whether for his own instrument or the violin or cello, was often innovative and always idiomatic.

The earliest of the Violin Concertos is the little known No.2 from 1858, influenced by Mendelssohn’s famous concerto for the same instrument, with a fully written out candenza that, beginning with the timpani, gradually brings the full orchestra back into play. The Violin Concerto No.1 was the next to follow, a short elegant work of just over 17 minutes, composed for the 15-year-old virtuoso Pablo de Sarasate. The Spanish violinist was also the dedicatee of the 3rd and most famous of the concertos - full of wonderful tunes, drama and passion, this is one of the great concertos of the violin repertoire.

This 2CD release contains the three concertos, as well as all of the composer’s other works for violin and orchestra. The famous Introduction and Rondo capriccioso and the mini concerto for violin, cello (with Ralph Kirschbaum) and orchestra La Muse et la Poete are featured, along with lesserknown works including the unfinished 4th Concerto’s opening movement Morceau de concert, which is comparable to the Symphony No.3 in the strength and brilliance of its melodies.

Once dubbed ‘the French Mendelssohn’, Camille Saint-Saëns was a prodigiously gifted composer of sophisticated and appealing music much of which has been unjustly neglected in recent times.

His three highly inventive and technically demanding violin concertos, of which the Second is arguably the most memorable and the Third the best known, abound in unforgettable melodies and expressive subtleties.

The young Parisian violinist Fanny Clamagirand, who won First Prize at the 2005 Fritz Kreisler Competition in Vienna and First Prize at the 2007 Monte Carlo Violin Masters Competition, the competition of competition winners, is an ideal interpreter of this gorgeous French Romantic music.

Two of the greatest interpreters of the roamantic era join forces to present a priogramme of French Masterpieces by Debussy, Chausson, Faure and Franck. Recordings made between 1927 and 1953.