Symphony No. 3 (Saint-Saëns)

The symphony was commissioned by the Royal Philharmonic Society (then called simply the Philharmonic Society) in England, and the first performance was given in London on 19 May 1886, at St James's Hall, conducted by the composer. After the death of his friend and mentor Franz Liszt on 31 July 1886, Saint-Saëns dedicated the work to Liszt's memory.

The composer seemed to know it would be his last attempt at the symphonic form, and he wrote the work almost as a type of "history" of his own career: virtuoso piano passages, brilliant orchestral writing characteristic of the Romantic period, and the sound of the organ suitable for a cathedral or large concert halls (which were typically equipped with the instrument). Saint-Saëns noted: "I gave everything to it I was able to give. What I have here accomplished, I will never achieve again." Although Saint-Saëns was asked, following the resounding success of the symphony at its French premiere in 1887, to compose another symphony, he would never again return to the genre.

The Organ Symphony was the first of a spate of symphonic works by leading French composers. Édouard Lalo's Symphony in G minor was composed shortly after the London premier of Saint-Saëns' third (between August and November 1886), and premiered in February 1887 at the Concerts Lamoureux. Also in 1886, Vincent d'Indy wrote his Symphony on a French Mountain Air, while César Franck composed his Symphony in the summer and autumn of 1887. Later examples include Ernest Chausson's Symphony in B-flat, written in 1891, and Paul Dukas' Symphony in C composed in 1896.

History

Background

On July 4, 1885 the directors of the Philharmonic Society agreed to commission a new, specifically French orchestral work, preferring Charles Gounod, with Léo Delibes, Jules Massenet, and Saint-Saëns as backup candidates. While the fate of petitions to these other composers remains unclear (if indeed they were ever despatched), the following year the Society arranged to bring Saint-Saëns to London as piano soloist in a concerto of his choice (Beethoven's fourth concerto), and he requested that his little-performed A-minor second symphony also be programmed. The society responded by requesting "some symphonic work expressly for next season", to which Saint-Saëns expeditiously agreed, responding in a letter dated August 25, 1885 "without making a formal commitment, I can promise you that I will make every effort to respond to your wish, and to write a new symphony for the sake of the Philharmonic Society." Based on correspondence between Saint-Saëns and both his publisher Durand and the Philharmonic Society's honorary secretary, Francesco Berger, composition of the new symphony was concentrated in the first months of 1886. The autograph score indicates that it was finished by April of that year.

Saint-Saëns' decision to compose an actual symphony in response to the Philharmonic Society's request was unusual. First, almost thirty years had passed since the forty-nine year old composer had last written a symphony (in 1859), and his reputation as a concert composer derived principally from his piano concertos and symphonic poems. Second, the Society's interest in an orchestral or symphonic work by a French composer would have generally precluded an actual symphony since, as a genre, it had been largely ignored by French composers. While symphonies were regularly performed in Parisian concert halls, appearing in more than half of the "Grands concerts" series that were comprised by the orchestral societies of Jules Pasdeloup, Édouard Colonne, and Charles Lamoureux, almost all were by Austro-German and Nordic composers, especially those of Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and Schumann. French symphonic composers of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, such as Gossec, Leduc, or Méhul, were virtually unknown by the later nineteenth century. Symphonic efforts by later French composers, including those by Gounod and the early symphonies by Saint-Saëns himself, were very rarely performed, while the youthful symphony of Bizet would remain unknown until 1933. Rare exceptions, such as the 1869 premiere of Bizet's Roma Symphony by Pasdeloup at his Concerts populaires series, were not warmly received by Parisian concertgoers.

Both Jann Pasler and Andrew Deruchie view Saint-Saëns choice to compose a symphony as "a direct response to ... Wagnerism in France". In the period prior to his writing the symphony, Saint-Saëns had warned French composers against adopting Wagnerian techniques and ideas, not for their lack of merit or aesthetic value, but instead for their fundamental incompatibility with the French character and French sensibilities, exhorting: "young musicians, if you wish to be something, remain French!" In 1871, Saint-Saëns and Romain Bussine had founded the Société nationale de musique specifically to showcase French music by organising both orchestral and chamber music concerts featuring French composers. By 1885, however, Saint-Saëns found himself increasingly marginalised within the Société Nationale. Vincent d'Indy and Henri Duparc, both disciples of the Belgian composer, César Franck, and enthusiastic proponents of Wagnerism, took control and opened the Société Nationale's programming to non-French, and especially German music. In Saint-Saëns' view, they were a "Caesarean [i.e. César Franck] and Wagnerian coterie" who had turned the Société Nationale into a "closed salon, unrelated to the intentions of its founders".

It has therefore been suggested that, for Saint-Saëns, the symphony, in its form, represented "an appropriate vehicle for a musical response" to growing Wagnerism in France "by pursuing ... the very genre that, according to Wagner and at least some of his French advocates, had mandated the music drama after exhausting itself with Beethoven". and that the symphony was an opportunity "to deliver a classical response to the concerns of Wagner and French Wagnerians". Saint-Saëns himself did not ascribe a motivation to his decision to pen a symphony, beyond the interest in the genre that might be inferred from his request to have his earlier A-minor symphony programmed.

Composition

Saint-Saëns likely started working on the symphony in the late summer of 1885, but was at the same time busy composing what would prove one of his most popular works, The Carnival of the Animals. In a correspondence from February 1886, he wrote to his publisher Durand:

I am in the process of perpetrating a vast composition for the coming Mardi Gras [i.e. The Carnival of the Animals]. It is all one score. I have only the Finale to write. Fourteen pieces! You ask me whether I would do better to work on my symphony. You are right, a hundred times right, but [The Carnival of the Animals] is so amusing.

Original sketches for the symphony indicate that Saint-Saëns originally wrote the opening theme of the symphony in the key of B minor. An early draft of the second theme was scored in C major, with a subsequent revision to its final form and the measures following (mm 102–140) also scored in C major and C minor, ultimately the final key of the work. Thus, the sketches of the extended exposition suggest that Saint-Saëns remained in some doubt as to the final key of the symphony, a conflict which he revealed in a letter to Berger: "this devil of a symphony has risen a half-tone; it did not want to remain in B minor: it is now in C minor." The shift from B to C minor meant that the "new symphony, with its cyclic thematic design, triumphant major-mode finale, and seamlessly linked movements, ... would invite comparison to the nineteenth century's ultimate model, Beethoven's Fifth". Like Beethoven's fifth symphony, the Organ Symphony, which proceeds from an agitated C minor opening to a rousing C major conclusion recalls the idea of a passage from adversity to triumph. Deruchie has argued that Saint-Saëns sought to infuse this "narrative design and the broad formal layout he inherited from previous symphonists with compositional procedures that had matured in other genres, notably the symphonic poem", highlighting the "eclecticism" of the work, notably in its unusual instrumentation (organ and piano) and "timbres and styles foreign to the [symphonic] genre".

It has been commonly noted that the opening theme of the symphony recalls the "Dies irae" by using the first five pitches of the well-known medieval chant. Given the dedication "to the memory of Franz Liszt", who died in 1886, it has been suggested that Saint-Saëns made intentional use of the motif to suggest the "resurrection and eternity" of Liszt. As various scholars have pointed out, however, the original dedication was intended "as a homage" to Franz Liszt the man, and not the memory, since his death occurred between the London premiere of the work and its eventual publication. In a letter dated June 19, 1886, Liszt wrote to Saint-Saëns, acknowledging both the intended dedication and "the success of the symphony in London". In Fallon's view, the work is non-programmatic and the coincidence of pitches with the "Dies irae" insignificant. In Deruchie's analysis, Saint-Saëns may have intended the idea of resurrection linked to the "Dies irae" with the renewal of the symphonic genre itself. In a 1918 letter to Pierre Adjutant, Saint-Saëns wrote "if a symphony could claim the honor of renewing the symphonic genre, it would be my symphony in C minor, on account of its unusual division and its use of the organ."

However, in the extensive program notes he prepared for the London premiere, while Saint-Saëns drew attention to novel features of his new work, noting its cyclic features and the unusual scoring for keyboard instruments and expanded woodwind and brass sections, which he suggested were a reflection of how "symphonic works should now be allowed to benefit [from] the progress of modern instrumentation", nowhere does he make mention of the "Dies irae", nor any programmatic intent behind the work.

Saint-Saëns gave the 182-page autograph score of the Organ symphony to the Bibliothèque nationale in September 1918, a few years before his death in 1921.

Reception and performance history

Premiere

The premiere, conducted by Saint-Saëns himself, took place at the Philharmonic Society's concert of 19 May 1886, at St James's Hall, London. In the opening half of the concert, Saint-Saëns was the soloist in Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto, with Arthur Sullivan conducting. In the second half, in keeping with the Society's tradition of inviting composers to perform their own works, Saint-Saëns himself conducted the performance of his new symphony. For his efforts, Saint-Saëns received an honorarium of £30.

Critical response to the London premiere was muted. In a brief notice in the London Standard (pictured), the reviewer indicated that he would need to hear the piece again to form an opinion.

The next performance of the symphony was its premiere in Germany, which took place in August 1886 in Aachen, at a concert organized by Fritz Wenigmann that featured an all Saint-Saëns programme, including the Rhapsodie d'Auvergne (in which Saint-Saëns was the soloist). The symphony took up the second half of the concert and was warmly received.

The French premiere, at a 9 January 1887 concert of the Société des Concerts, produced a much more enthusiastic response. Public response "was unprecedented for a new work", and the second performance a week later was similarly warmly received. Ambroise Thomas lobbied the committee of the Société for a third hearing of the work, arguing that the symphony was "powerful and exceptionally noteworthy, and given the invasion of German music, it would be well to offer another performance of this work that so honours the French school." A third programming of the work was indeed arranged and held on 13 March 1887.

Subsequent performances

The United States premiere was given on 19 February 1887, conducted by Theodore Thomas, at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York City.

A notable performance of the symphony took place on June 2, 1913, where it was the featured work at a Jubilee Festival Concert held at Queen's Hall in Saint-Saëns' honour. The composer was in attendance (he performed a concerto by Mozart, the only work on the program not by him), where Alexander Mackenzie delivered an encomium at the concert declaring he had "led the advance of French music in every branch, and you are justly acknowledged today to be its most exalted and most gifted representative".

In May 1915, Saint-Saëns traveled to San Francisco as France's Official Representative to the Panama–Pacific International Exposition. He attended a performance of the Symphony No. 3 at the 3,782 seat Festival Hall. Karl Muck conducted the San Francisco Symphony. The composer was given a standing ovation at the performance, which was also attended by composer John Philip Sousa. Saint-Saëns composed another piece especially for the occasion called "Hail California", which included Sousa's famous band.