Camille Saint-Saëns’ string quartets are not the chirpy, cheery, tune-laden gems we would expect from the composer. They are not as instantly attractive and romantic as the concertos, nor as easily accessible a combination of formal simplicity and autumnal sorrow as the late woodwind sonatas (available on a superb recent Naxos disc). If anything by Saint-Saëns can be honestly called challenging, it is these two string quartets. But the rewards are well worth your listening time.

…une démonstration brillante de savoir-faire et de profondeur stylistique de la part d’un homme arrivé en fin de parcours avec un bagage intellectuel et artistique d’un niveau exceptionnel. Interprétations justes et soignées. © La Scena Musicale

En fin, dos cuartetos que podrán gustar más o menos, pero que merecen ser conocidos porque en ellos brilla la inteligente pluma de Saint-Saëns, no siempre suficientemente valorado. La agrupación Fine Arst Quartet, fue fundada en Chicago en 1946, habiendo realizado un buen número de grabaciones y giras por todo el mundo. El cuarteto de solistas se muestra sólido, resuelto y con una elegante plasticidad desprovista de innecesarios manierismos. Un fraseo muy cuidado, en el que todo resulta dúctil, fluido y desenvuelto. © Sinfonía Virtual

Saint-Saëns ”String Quartets” med Fine Arts Quartet (Naxos): här möter några av musikhistoriens vackraste, mest rikhaltiga och mest komplexa verk—och med uttolkare som denna ensemble blir resultatet fantastiskt. Att lyssna på denna skiva är som att besöka ett själsligt spa. © Ovanmyra missionshus

YOU usually think of Camille Saint-Saëns (1835–1921) as an expert craftsman with a fund of memorable melody set to charm and please, not a composer to challenge, argue or reflect in his music. But Saint-Saëns was far more than just a functional composer, as shown in his two string quartets written when he was in his 60s and 80s.

Quartet No. 1 in E minor is autumnal and deeply reflective; its dedication to the great Belgian violinist Eugène Ysaÿe is evident in the featured writing for the first violin. The slow movement could almost be a Beethoven cavatina. No. 2 in G major recalls Mozart initially, but quickly moves into its own world.

Music to change minds: two quartets that show Saint-Saëns’s hidden depths

The Fine Arts Quartet continue their admirable series (Beethoven, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Bruckner, Franck and Fauré) with Saint-Saëns’s two string quartets. And here they make a persuasive case for music that is not only “brilliantly crafted” but “serious and intellectual” (their leader Ralph Evans). Certainly the First Quartet in E minor in particular is a reminder of music beyond the elegant facility with which Saint-Saëns is habitually credited. He may have “produced music as an apple tree produces apples” (his own words) but later in his life the string quartet provided him with a special challenge.

what comes to mind when thinking of this composer are the big orchestral and operatic works (and that ubiquitous Swan!). But there exists also a wealth of chamber music works in most forms and some rather unusual combinations, yet no works for piano and chamber ensemble—a bit surprising since Saint-Saëns was a performance-calibre pianist himself. The quartets, especially the later one in G, Op. 153 are rather modern-sounding—not much romantic flavour there. The Fine Arts Quartet has had many changes of personnel over the years, but its standard of playing has never been less than superb—as is the case with these quartets, with much presence and warm sound in the recording.

Die vier Musiker des ‘Fine Arts Quartet’ zeigen ihre Kunst einmal mehr in Werken, die nicht gerade zum geläufigen Repertoire gehören, und werden aus Überzeugung zu erstklassigen Anwälten der beiden Quartette von Camille Saint- Saëns…Das erste Quartett fasziniert mit einem melancholisch und hintergründig brodelnden ersten Satz, einem virtuosen zweiten Satz, einem wunderbar kantablen, tief empfundenen Adagio und einem nervös dramatischen Finalsatz. Im dreisätzigen Quartett op. 153 hatte Saint-Saëns kein so reich gefülltes Füllhorn an kompositorischen Einfällen zur Verfügung. Aber, was an Einfallskraft fehlt, macht das Fine Arts Quartet mit typisch französischer Eleganz wett. Und so haben wir es denn hier mit einer wirklich ganz hervorragenden Kammermusik-CD zu tun. © Pizzicato

I am in agreement with other reviewers elsewhere that this is music which does not yield up its attractions on first listening. A certain cool formality—very different from that which we more readily associate with the composer of his more popular compositions—disguises its profundity. One reviewer even goes so far as to say that the failure of his string quartets to please or succeed, relative to Saint-Saëns’ popular works, is explained by their lack of memorability. This to me suggests lazy listening; certainly the members of the distinguished American group the Fine Arts Quartet believe in this music. Their first violinist Ralph Evans describes them as “serious, intellectual, brilliantly crafted yet delightful works which will change minds in a hurry”.

Despite having already written a good deal of chamber music, Op. 112 was Saint-Saëns’ first foray into the medium of the string quartet. These are both mature works, written when he was in his sixties and eighties respectively; the second, in particular, exudes the melancholy nostalgia associated with old age. His love of Bach and Mendelssohn is manifested in the frequent archaic and neo-classical allusions in his music and a love of the fugue, a favourite form which appears several time at different points in these works. Yet Saint-Saëns’ sound-world is clearly not entirely retrospective; it contains many Impressionistic touches, unsurprising from a composer whose career spanned the mid-nineteenth century to the early twentieth.

The E minor quartet begins in a melancholy vein, sombre and formal; there is always a note of anxiety throughout. The second movement calls for some superbly articulated triplets in the restatement of the principal theme. The Molto adagio is dominated by the singing of the first violin, presumably in homage to the dedicatee Eugène Ysaÿe. Played as well as it is here, this movement seems to match the poise and tenderness of the Beethoven Cavatina; there is the same sense of time suspended. In a more agitated passage a tentative, stuttering syncopated figure alternates with the slow theme before they resolve into the spacious calm of the concluding two minutes. Finally, the mood of agitation returns in the last movement which close uneasily with a frantic passage for the violin.

I have seen the Op.153 described as “a sunny, playful work” but that is really only half the story. It opens in neo-classical, Mozartian vein—momentum and elegance in a serene G major with some arresting shifts of key. The slow movement employs some exotic melody and harmony, perhaps the result of the composer’s familiarity with North Africa. It contains another serene cantabile dryly described by the composer with his typical wit as “deadly dull as an Adagio should be”. It is in fact teasingly beautiful, featuring towards the end little spiralling, descending curlicue figures on the first violin suggestive of acceptance and resignation. After the slow, contemplativmore....

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