Notes for: July 22, 2014
Over a composing career of 85 years, Saint-Saëns wrote vast quantities of attractive character pieces for many different instruments. His object was to discover and exploit the distinctive character of the instruments, finding new ways both to distinguish and to blend them. This evening we hear two examples – one written when he was 36 years old and in the full bloom of his career as a composer, concert pianist and church organist, and the other when he was 22 and still establishing his reputation in Paris.
Saint-Saëns wrote the Tarantelle, also originally with orchestral accompaniment, in 1857 when he was just embarking on his long and successful career as a composer, teacher, organist and pianist. The piece not only was instrumental in establishing his reputation, but also served through a humorous incident to win the influential support of Rossini, the leading opera composer of the day, then living in retirement in Paris.
According to Saint-Saëns’s memoirs, Rossini knew the flutist and clarinetist for which the piece was composed, and he suggested that they play it at one of the lavish dinner parties that he frequently gave for his army of admirers. Saint-Saëns continues:
As there was never any printed program at these celebrated evenings, Rossini contrived to give the impression that it was his own work. You can imagine what a tremendous success it had under such conditions. When the encore was finished, Rossini took me into the dining room and made me sit near him, holding me by the hand so that I couldn’t get away.
Then came the procession of admirers and camp followers. “Ah! Maestro! What a masterpiece!” and so on. And when the victim had exhausted all the superlatives he could think of, Rossini would blandly reply: “I entirely agree with you. But I didn’t write it – this gentleman here is the composer.”
“Tarantelle” is French for “tarantella,” a fast, often breathless, Italian dance in 6/8 time. According to popular legend, the dance is related to the tarantula spider and originated as a frenzied reaction to, or as a primitive cure for, the spider’s bite. The truth is that (1) the name of the dance derives from Taranto, a city in Italy, and that (2) tarantula bites are painful but not particularly toxic or maddening.
Notes for: July 29, 2025
According to folk belief, if you were bitten by a tarantula you died – unless you had the energy to dance the venom away. That belief was the root of the tarantella, a wildly energetic folk dance from 16th-century southern Italy that purportedly had the power to drive out the poison. Saint-Saëns zestfully captures the spirit of the dance in a dashing and devilish Tarantelle. From its playful ostinato opening to its frenzied finish, this Tarantelle is exuberant, witty, and dramatic. There are wild scales and arpeggios, manic trills and grace notes, virtuosic exchanges that challenge the instrumentalists, and an infectious rhythm throughout. The pace is briefly slowed by a more lyrical middle section before the hectic energy returns in a mad dash to the end. As you would expect from Saint-Saëns, it’s all great good fun.
At the time Saint-Saëns wrote the Tarantelle he was a 21-year-old rising star: a keyboard virtuoso who had been giving concerts since he was 10, a composer whose works already included three symphonies, and a gifted organist who in 1857 – the year he wrote the Tarantelle – was appointed organist at the Church of the Madeleine, a post he would hold for many years. Wagner, Liszt, and Rossini by then had expressed their admiration for the gifted young artist.
Years later Saint-Saëns told an amusing story about how Rossini gave the Tarantelle a boost. Saint-Saëns wrote it for the first flutist and the first clarinetist of the Académie Royale de Musique. A short time after the three gave the work its premiere, Rossini – who had retired to Paris and had become a revered musical authority there – came up with a clever ploy to promote the piece and its young composer. Rossini had the Tarantelle performed at one of his famous salons. As Saint-Saëns told the story, “As there was never a written program for these evenings, Rossini let it be known that the piece was his. You can imagine the extent of success under such conditions! When the piece was at the encore, Rossini took me into the room and made me sit next to him, taking my hand so that I could not escape. Then came a procession of admirers and courtiers, with ‘Ah, master! What a masterpiece! What wonderful music!’ And when they had finished the range of congratulations, Rossini calmly replied, ‘I completely agree. But the work is not by me, it’s by this gentleman here.’” And with that the Tarantelle was launched. Saint-Saëns continued to perform the popular piece, and several years later he prepared an orchestrated version.