Naxos’s single-disc compilation pares down the contents of the French Indésens set by omitting the Septet in E♭-Major for string quartet, double bass, trumpet, and piano; the Cavatine for trombone and piano; the Romance for flute and piano; the Odelette for flute and piano; and the Prayer for bassoon and piano. Also absent, though not missed, are three transcriptions—two from The Carnival of the Animals and one from Samson et Dalila—that were not wind works to begin with.

Sin ser una música de cámara de primera fila, algunos intérpretes excepcionales se han acercado a ella, dando la sensación de ser mucho más de lo que en principio aparenta. Alguno de esos intérpretes es Richard Stoltzman, que grabó (RCA) junto a la pianista española (?) Irma Vallecillo una maravillosa Sonata op. 167 de Saint-Saëns, que es la obra de mayor valor del catálogo de cámara con instrumentos de viento del francés. Esta no llega a la densidad de Stoltzman, pero es más que digna y abandera un disco con un nutrido grupo de obras para instrumentos de viento, como el Capricho sobre motivos daneses y rusos op. 79 (nada que ver con la versión de Postnikova & Cía., Erato). Además de esta Sonata, están sus hermanas para oboe Op. 166 y fagot Op. 168, todas escritas en el último año de la vida de su autor, 1921. No nos encontramos con músicas otoñales ni con la sombra de un Brahms (ni siquiera en la de clarinete), son obras que manifiestan un gran sentido vitalista, estando las tres en modos mayores. El nexo de unión interpretativo es Stéphane Lemelin, pianista canadiense que participa de la primera a la última obra, que además de las citadas están el Romance op. 67 y la Tarantella op. 6.

Gallic charm and exuberance in chamber works from the end of Saint-Saëns’s life

Saint-Saëns’s acute ear for the personality of particular instruments is nowhere more conspicuous than in the three sonatas that he composed in the last year of this life, 1921. These final forays into the realms of chamber music also show Saint-Saëns winnowing his style, so that, while still having recourse to the generous fund of lyricism on which he had always been able to capitalize, he now wrote with conscious economy of means.

Few composers harbored as many contradictions as Camille Saint-Saëns, a child prodigy, superstar organist, and Renaissance man who began his career in the 1850s as the most talented French composer on the rise and ended it after World War I as an old-fashioned reactionary. Nevertheless, he wrote in almost every genre; and his wind music, spanning almost 65 years, continues to be popular. On this record, each member of Canada’s National Arts Centre Wind Quintet—all principal players in the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa— teams up with Canadian pianist Stephane Lemelin, the Director of the School of Music at the University of Ottawa.

Stephane Lemelin and ensemble prove that an album of wind instruments is fresh, lively, and exciting. This album of all Saint-Saëns music includes ensemble pieces as well as pieces that beautifully showcase each instrument; this shows that careful attention was paid to the selection and order of repertoire. The ensemble pieces are exciting, with a wall of sound where each instrument holds equal weight. Even the piano, playful and sparkling, is its own personality, but it never outplays the winds. Each of the musicians, from the clarinet to the bassoon, has excellent technique. One quickly gets the impression that these musicians are at the top of their game; they know how to play a Caprice just as well as they know how to play an Adagio, with excellent timing, phrasing, and dynamics, while never losing an intimate chamber music feel. The oboe sonata is played with such fluidity, like a clarinet or violin, with legato lines, trills, and a blooming-swelling piano underneath. The oboe maintains its dignity, without ever lapsing into a schmaltzy, trying-to-be-poignant tone. The bassoonist plays with agility, but yet the somber Adagio is equally worthy. Perhaps the only foul note on the album is that the horn tends to drag a bit in the Romance in E major, which is quite interesting to listen to with its Chopin-esque piano lines that emerge here and there. However, this is only a minor point in an overall strong album. The Tarantella is a perfect ending. We hear the spider crawling, the dance making its way around and around. The flute and clarinet are in perfect synchronization, and the piece fully captures the passion of an entire orchestra in just three instruments. Saint-Saëns’ musical lines and rhythms playfully intertwine, and comes alive thanks to the musicians. For those looking to expand their collection of music by wind instruments, or who are new to this area of music, this album is a worthy place to start.

At times I think that only French composers around 1900 could so marvelously turn poetry into music. A good deal of the chamber music of Saint-Saens supports that feeling, and a new Naxos CD titled “Music for Wind Instruments” will help my argument.

A selection of Camille Saint-Saëns (1835–1921) for wind instruments, sampling more from his later works. Compared to the Indesens 2 CD release with the soloist of the Paris Orchestra, this one sounds a bit thin, although still lovely.

Plus connu pour Le carnaval des animaux et le Concerto pour viloncelle, Camille Saint-Saeëns a légué bien d’autres perles. Pour quelques dollars, nous allons partager avec le pianiste montréalais Stépahne Lemelin et l’orchestre à vents d’Ottawa une série de compositions, presque des miniatures pour clarinette, basson et cuivres. Dans un climat intimiste, Lemelin et ses complices livrent avec une certaine élégance de beaux souvenirs, comme à l’époque du Paris de 1900. Riche, rigoureux et intègre.

Chamber music is music of compression: with a limited number of instruments, a composer’s ability to communicate must be less diffuse, more focused than in works written for orchestra or large ensembles. Over time, though, composers have evolved a wide variety of ways of coping with chamber-style works and giving them an individual stamp—and those ways differ considerably today (not surprisingly) from what they were in the 19th century. In the case of Camille Saint-Saëns, there is a certain Gallic charm and easy flow to all his music, orchestral or chamber—even The Carnival of the Animals, it is easy to forget, was written as a chamber work. But Saint-Saëns’ chamber music for winds is not very well known, so a new CD from Canadian players, featuring six chamber pieces for winds, is quite welcome. The three sonatas—for clarinet, oboe and bassoon—are the real finds here. All date from 1921, the last year of the composer’s life, and all are quite different from Saint-Saëns’ earlier music. The easy charm, the romantic flourishes, have quite disappeared: these are works of comparative austerity, with rather light piano accompaniment, and they have a distinctly French sound to them—albeit not the sort of sound being created by Debussy, Ravel and Roussel, whose more-modern music had largely supplanted that of Saint-Saëns in public favor. The bassoon sonata is especially interesting, starting with two quick movements (the second faster than the first) and concluding with a Molto adagio. This is quite out of keeping with the style listeners are used to in Saint-Saëns (and indeed, this is the only one of the three late sonatas with this structure); but it indicates that, even at the end of life, when modernism had taken over the musical world, Saint-Saëns was seeking new ways to express himself through his own tonal language. As for the other works here: the Caprice and Romance actually date to the time of Carnival of the Animals (mid-1880s) and are filled with singing lines, lovely melodies and plenty of fanfare-like passages. The Tarantella, offered at the end of this CD as a kind of encore, is the earliest work on the disc, dating to 1857—when the composer was 22. Originally written for flute, clarinet and string orchestra, it sounds just fine with piano accompaniment: forthright, self-assured and ebullient, and filled with virtuosity—a light type of chamber music that remained quite popular throughout the Romantic era.