Saint-saens: Violin Concerto No. 3 / Caprice Andalous

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Camille Saint-Sa?½ns (1835 - 1921)Introduction and Rondo capriccioso in A Minor, Op. 28Romance in C Major, Op. 48Caprice andalous in G Major, Op.122Morceau de concert in G Major, Op. 62Violin Concerto No.3 in B Minor, Op. 61Camille Saint-Sa?½ns enjoyed a long and prolific career as a composer. As ayounger man he was a leading supporter of newer tendencies in French music: inold age his opposition to Debussy, whom he outlived by three years, earned him adeserved reputation as an enemy of w hat was seen as progress. His latercritics, who could hardly dispute his technical command, wrote of bad music wellwritten, an unmerited jibe at a composer who had achieved much in a variety offields. An admirer of Mozart, he was known to some as the French Mendelssohn,and his music always possessed the clarity of form and texture common to theseearlier composers, elements that influenced his friend and pupil Gabriel Faureand, vicariously, Faure's own pupil Maurice Ravel. Gounod referred to him asthe French Beethoven, and these flattering comparisons are evidence of theesteem in which he was held.In his personal life Saint-Sa?½ns was not always fortunate. As a boy he wasbrought up by his mother and his great-aunt, two women to whom he was devoted,the latter his first teacher. His marriage at the age of fort y to anineteen-year-old, to his mother's marked disapproval, was predictablydisastrous and was brought to an end, after the death of his two young sonsthrough illness and accident. In 1881 Saint-Sa?½ns, on holiday with his wife,simply walked out, never to return. For the remaining forty years of his life,and particularly after the death of his mother in 1888, he lavished affection onhis dogs and on his pupil Faure, whom he had first met as a student at theEcole Niedermeyer in Paris in 1861.A child prodigy as a pianist, Saint-Sa?½ns entered the Paris Conservatoire in1848, studying the organ with Benoist and composition with Bizet's father-in-law Halevy. After earlier positions as organist, in 1957 he became organistat the Madeleine, where his improvisations made a profound impression on Liszt.His own catholic musical tastes led him to do much to revive interest in Francein the music of Bach, Handel and Mozart, while his progressive interests led himto an appreciation of Wagner, of Schumann and of the innovative symphonic poemsof Liszt. In 1871 he shared in the establishment of the societe Nationale deMusique for the encouragement of contemporary French music, although, as theyears passed, he found the new world of music unacceptable.Saint-Sa?½ns added very significantly to violin repertoire, with threeconcertos for the instrument, in addition to a number of shorter works forviolin and orchestra. The most popular of these last is the Introduction andRondo capriccioso, Opus 28, written in 1863, during his brief period as apiano teacher at the Ecole Niedermeyer. Saint-Sa?½ns dedicated this, as well ashis first and third concertos, to the Spanish virtuoso Pablo Sa