Classical Music | Violin Music

Recorded on 01/06/2010, uploaded on 04/06/2010

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Like his compatriots Bizet and Lalo, Camille Saint-Saëns held a certain fascination for Spanish music. Standing alongside such splendid evocations of the style as Lalo’s Symphonie espagnole or the Habanera from Bizet’s Carmen is Saint-Saëns’s masterful showpiece Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso. Composed in 1863, Saint-Saëns composed the piece for the violin virtuoso Pablo de Sarasate, for whom he wrote his First Violin Concerto four years earlier and would later compose his Concerto in B minor in 1880. Following the works premiere and later publication, De Sarasate was instrumental in establishing the work’s popularity and it has since remained a staple of the repertoire. Indeed, both Bizet and Debussy were impelled to craft their own arrangements of the work—the former reducing the orchestra to a piano accompaniment and the latter transforming the work for two pianos.

As indicated by the title, the work opens with a slow introduction—a languid Andante malinconico in A minor. Atop a simple chordal accompaniment from the orchestra, the violin sounds the opening melancholy tune from its lush middle register. Over the course of the introduction, the melody becomes more enlivened, as if awakening from its slumber and leads, through a sort of quasi-cadenza, into the Rondo proper. Adopting the lilting rhythms of a compound meter, the Rondo establishes a somewhat quicker place (Allegro ma non troppo), but not without abandoning the relaxed feel of the introduction, and the violin gives forth the Rondo’s sprightly main theme. This is later contrasted by a lyrical and somber second theme in the relative major, which features a compelling juxtaposition of compound and duple meters (2/4 meter in the soloists against the 6/8 of the orchestra). The themes and motives of the work are developed through the course of the Rondo amidst brilliant figurations and embellishments from the soloist. An energetic coda, in A major and quickening to Più Allegro, built around fast-paced arpeggios and scales creates an exciting and invigorating close for one of Saint-Saëns’s most famous compositions.      Joseph DuBose

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Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso in A minor, Op. 28      Camille Saint-Saëns

Saint-Saens added significantly to the violin repertoire, with three concertos and two sonatas for the instrument, in addition to a number of shorter works. The most popular of these smaller pieces is the Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, Op. 28, written in 1863. Saint-Saens dedicated this, as well as his first and third concertos, to the Spanish violin virtuoso Pablo Sarasate who premiered the Capriccioso's version with orchestra in Paris on April 4, 1867.The work makes considerable use of Spanish rhythms and turns of phrase, as Saint-Saens, like many of his French Romantic contemporaries, held a deep interest in the style of Spanish dance music.

The piece opens with the accompaniment supporting the violin with block chord progressions while the soloist plays virtuosic arpeggios and chromatic scale passages. The introduction concludes with a tranquil cadenza in which the violin visits all registers of the instrument.  The syncopated melody of the rondo is introduced by the violin over a rhythmic motion in the piano. The second theme is introduced and both themes are revisited, before a fast-paced extended coda brings the work to a close.    Evgeny Kutik