CAMILLE SAINT-SAËNS (1835–1921)

 

Piano Trio No.1 in F major Op.18

Piano Trio No.2 in E minor Op.92

 

The Florestan Trio: Anthony Marwood - violin, Richard Lester - cello, Susan Tomes - piano

 

Despite being the composer of innumerable works in all genres from grand opera to piano miniature, Saint-Saëns today is known largely for his third symphony (the ‘Organ’ Symphony), the piano concertos (award-winningly recorded by Stephen Hough on Hyperion) and the omnipresent Carnival of the animals (a work its composer did his best to suppress). The two piano trios, composed in 1863 and 1892, stand at the apogee of his neglected chamber music output, and their place in a genre the composer held dear is reflected in their quality.

 

Piano Trio No.1 was Saint-Saëns’s first truly successful work. Inspired by the terrain and folk music of the French Pyrenees, it has a breezy simplicity, its open lyricism—naïveté even—offering so much more than 1860s opera-mad France could ever have realized. The second trio is a more serious and subtle work; the intervening decades had seen Saint-Saëns retreat from a world in which he felt increasing marginalized. From self-imposed exile in Algeria he sent this work to the world as a postcard firmly reiterating his belief in the values of traditional form and melody.

 

Forget the jibe about Saint-Saëns as the purveyor of "la mauvaise musique bien écrite ". His two piano trios, written nearly 30 years apart, are marvellously fresh, inventive pieces, the youthful F major No 1 a Gallic charmer, the E minor No 2 altogether more ambitious and impassioned.

The F major's alfresco exuberance was evidently inspired by a holiday in the Pyrenees. Specially memorable are the andante, with its haunting, bardic theme over a bucolic drone, and the scherzo, where playful, almost jazzy syncopations alternate with a stomping rustic dance. The Florestan's rhythmic verve, subtle shading and luminous, sparkling textures (pianist Susan Tomes's cascading fingerwork a constant delight) catch the trio's spirit to perfection.

In the E minor, Saint-Saëns never abandons his trademark clarity and fastidiousness; and the whimsical minuet (in five-time!) is one of his most piquant miniatures. But the smouldering intensity of the first movement may surprise the unwary. Again, the Florestan are wonderfully natural, eloquent advocates, whether in the opening allegro's storms and lulling lyricism (its torrential climax magnificently prepared and clinched) or the beautiful Schumannesque andante, played with an ideal restrained fervour. A winner.

Richard Wigmore, Telegraph

 

Hyperion CDA67538