Saint-Saëns Wind Chamber Works
Gallic charm and exuberance in chamber works from the end of Saint-Saëns’s life
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Camille Saint-Saëns
Genre:
Chamber
Label: Naxos
Magazine Review Date: 3/2011
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 64
Mastering:
Stereo
DDD
Catalogue Number: 8 570964
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Caprice sur des airs danois et russes |
Camille Saint-Saëns, Composer
Camille Saint-Saëns, Composer Charles Hamann, Oboe Joanna G'froerer, Flute Kimball Sykes, Clarinet Stéphane Lemelin, Piano |
Sonata for Clarinet and Piano |
Camille Saint-Saëns, Composer
Camille Saint-Saëns, Composer Kimball Sykes, Clarinet Stéphane Lemelin, Piano |
Sonata for Oboe and Piano |
Camille Saint-Saëns, Composer
Camille Saint-Saëns, Composer Charles Hamann, Oboe Stéphane Lemelin, Piano |
Sonata for Bassoon and Piano |
Camille Saint-Saëns, Composer
Camille Saint-Saëns, Composer Christopher Millard, Bassoon Stéphane Lemelin, Piano |
Romance |
Camille Saint-Saëns, Composer
Camille Saint-Saëns, Composer Lawrence Vine, Horn Stéphane Lemelin, Piano |
Tarantelle |
Camille Saint-Saëns, Composer
Camille Saint-Saëns, Composer Joanna G'froerer, Flute Kimball Sykes, Clarinet Stéphane Lemelin, Piano |
Author: Geoffrey Norris
The members of Canada’s National Arts Centre Wind Quintet appreciate and convey these facets in performances that encapsulate the Gallic charm and finesse of the music. At the same time, the Oboe Sonata’s mix of the pastoral and the perky is nicely established, as is the blend of warmth and bravura in the Clarinet Sonata, with its lowest register explored in the solemn Lento movement and its capacity for exuberance in the finale. In the Bassoon Sonata, Saint-Saëns again reveals his ability to write music of a character individually tailored to the instrument’s timbre and tonal palette, here within the context of piece that takes Baroque compositional principles as a model.
The unifying feature of this programme is the excellently judged piano playing of Stéphane Lemelin, who adds a discerning range of colour and spirit to the performances, whether in the sonatas or in the lovely Romance for horn, the lively Tarantella for flute and clarinet, or the Caprice on Danish and Russian Airs, which Saint-Saëns dedicated to the Danish-born wife of Russia’s Tsar Alexander III.
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