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Saint-Saëns’ Organ Symphony: Dedicated to… oh he died.

Composers often dedicate their works.  Most of the time the dedicatee would be members of the aristocracy, kings, wealthy patrons and the like, hoping for their support for the composers’ music.  Sometimes, however, the dedicatee would be friends or peers.  Rachmaninoff famously dedicated his second piano concerto to Nikolai Dahl who helped him with his depression, and Mahler dedicated his Symphony of a Thousand to his wife Alma Mahler.

Saint-Saëns intended to dedicate his 3rd Symphony (Organ Symphony) to Franz Liszt, who was 24 years his senior and one of the early supporters of his music.  The composer’s popular opera Samson et Dalila, for example, owed its Weimar premiere to the efforts of Liszt after not seeing any interest from French opera houses of the time.  When Liszt heard Saint-Saëns play the organ at La Madeleine in Paris, he declared him the greatest organist in the world.

Unfortunately, that was not to be.  Liszt died on 31 July 1886, shortly after the premiere of the Organ Symphony on 19 May of the same year, before the score was published – with the inscription “Á la Memoire de Franz Liszt” – to the memory of Franz Liszt.

Come hear us perform Saint-Saëns’ “Organ Symphony”, Poulenc’s Gloria and more in the upcoming Learners concert on May 10, 2017! Contact us at 9234 6057 or by email at learnershk@gmail.com for ticketing and donation enquiry.

Donations will be made to the Hong Kong Christian Council’s “School Building Project in Myanmar” to build a new middle school for graduates of the Mayangone Primary School.

Saint-Saëns’ Organ Symphony: The birth of a favourite

A few weeks ago we talked about Poulenc’s open commission for an “orchestral work of major proportions” which he turned into a 6 movement Gloria.  Saint-Saens’ Organ Symphony, which we will be performing in our upcoming concert, was not an open commission – but the composer got to write what he wanted anyway.

In 1886, the Royal Philharmonic Society invited the composer to give a performance in London of one of his concertos, old or new.  Eventually, however, the two parties reached an agreement whereby the French composer would create an entirely new symphonic work under the commission of the Society.  Being considered by many as the greatest living French composer of the time certainly had its perks.

*with* organ… but that’s fine.

Thus born was his Symphony No. 3 in C minor, Op. 78, the third and last of his completed symphonies published with an opus number.  Thanks to the composer’s inscription of it as Symphonie No. 3 “avec orgue” (i.e. “with organ”), the symphony later became dearly known as the “Organ Symphony”.  The fact that this is a symphony where the pipe organ is used, rather than a true symphony for organ, does not affect the popularity of the work.

The composer considered the Organ Symphony as one of his greatest works, packed with innovation of the time.  In his own words:

I gave everything to it I was able to give. What I have here accomplished, I will never achieve again.

Come hear us perform Saint-Saëns’ “Organ Symphony”, Poulenc’s Gloria and more in the upcoming Learners concert on May 10, 2017! Contact us at 9234 6057 or by email at learnershk@gmail.com for ticketing and donation enquiry.

Donations will be made to the Hong Kong Christian Council’s “School Building Project in Myanmar” to build a new middle school for graduates of the Mayangone Primary School.