Introduction and Rondo capriccioso
Composition and premiere: Saint-Saëns wrote the Introduction and Rondo capriccioso in 1863, though it was not published until 1870, giving it an opus number that is slightly higher than would be expected for an early work. The Spanish virtuoso Pablo de Sarasate, the work’s dedicatee, gave the premiere on April 4, 1867, at the Salle Pleyel, Paris, conducted by the composer. The Boston Symphony Orchestra gave the American premiere under Georg Henschel with violinist Alfred de Sève on December 15, 1883. Since then it has been performed most frequently as a showpiece by the BSO and Boston Pops. Albert Spalding was soloist in the first Tanglewood performance in a gala Allied Relief Fund Benefit concert for British aid—the precursor to Tanglewood on Parade—with the BSO led by Richard Burgin.
Berlioz on the subject of the young Saint-Saëns: “He knows everything but lacks inexperience.” This bon mot is ideally suited to describe a man who, having composed his first piece at age three, was hailed for a time as a second Mozart; who played a piano recital in Paris at age ten and offered as an encore any Beethoven sonata; who was hailed by Liszt as the greatest organist in the world; who eagerly pursued studies in archeology, astronomy, and philosophy and wrote extensively in all three fields, as well as taking vigorous part in musical polemics. And in his 86 years, he composed thirteen operas, symphonies and orchestral tone poems, ten full-fledged concertos for piano, violin, or cello, and a large body of chamber music and other works. But he was for a time best remembered (this fact would have caused him deep chagrin) for a private burlesque which he dashed off in a matter of days, an amusing jest called Carnival of the Animals. Though he was a leader in the foundation of the Société Nationale de Musique, which provided an outlet for new music by French composers at a time when such concert programs as existed were dominated by Viennese or German classics, his popularity faded in France decades before his death, and his last years were embittered by public mockery for his dislike of the new music. Saint-Saëns’s style was compounded of a thorough familiarity with and respect for the German tradition and a special overlay of characteristic French coolness, precision, wit, and rationality. In his large output there are works that come across as somewhat too cool and reserved to engage the listener, but there are many imaginative and attractive pieces, among them some popular virtuosic showpieces. The Introduction and Rondo capriccioso is one of these.
It is an early work, composed in 1863 when Saint-Saëns was not yet 30, but it attained an early and lasting success as a vehicle for violinists. The composer himself defended the writing of music that is difficult for its own sake by pointing out that virtuosity “is the source of the picturesque in music. Virtuosity gives a composer wings with which to soar above the commonplace and the platitudinous. The conquest of difficulty itself is beautiful... Difficulties are sneered at by those who cannot overcome them.” Now, it would certainly be absurd to claim that all virtuoso showpieces “soar above the commonplace”; Saint-Saëns’s own century is filled with counterexamples. But when virtuosity of technique is allied with a colorful imagination, the resulting work may be attractive in its own right and call for a technique that expands the expressive repertory of future composers and performers. In the Introduction and Rondo capriccioso, Saint-Saëns highlights the solo violin from beginning to end in writing of fantastic virtuosity that employs the idiomatic Spanish rhythms so beloved of French composers in the last half of the 19th century. The clarity of the rondo form following the short, lyric introduction obviates any purely technical description.
Steven Ledbetter
Steven Ledbetter, a freelance writer and lecturer on music, was program annotator of the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1979 to 1998.