Camille Saint-Saëns does not need to be promoted in our context. He made more famous contributions to the virtuoso violin concerto literature than almost any other Romantic composer of the 19th century. His Havanaise in E major, op. 83, his Introduction et Rondo capriccioso, op. 28, and also his Danse macabre are famous. But his three violin concertos are less well known; the third violin concerto in B minor, op. 61, is the one most likely to be played in today's concerts. Here I would like to make a plea for the chronologically first violin concerto in C major by the early, gifted, young, romantic Saint-Saëns, which is almost forgotten in concert halls.

It is also known that Saint-Saëns, composer and organist, led an extremely long life. He was 86 years old, lived through many phases of French music history and at the end of his life had to realise: "What else do I want? To be the future and not the past? I have been the future; in my early days I was considered a revolutionary - at my present age, you can only be an ancestor."

It is less well known that Saint-Saëns was a child prodigy: at the age of three, he wrote his first piano piece by himself - "without having been whipped at the piano", as he later confessed; at the age of 10, he made his debut as a pianist; at 15, he completed his first symphony; at 17, he became an organist, first at the Église Saint-Merry in Paris and later at the Église de la Madeleine.

The Violin Concerto No. 2 in C major also dates from Saint-Saëns' youth. He composed it in 1858 at the age of 23, after he had already performed symphonies and many other works with considerable success. Although chronologically his first violin concerto, it is not a modest first compositional work, but a musical departure on a self-confident journey through life with virtuoso demands. Saint-Saëns wrote it for the painter and violinist Achille Dien, with whom he played chamber music in his youth. With the aspirations of youth, he wanted to overcome rigid forms and lead the musical events into the expanse of romantic longing for new beginnings, albeit still freely orientated towards classical patterns. Saint-Saëns seems to have been familiar with Vieuxtemps' violin concertos, but also with Mendelssohn's violin concerto, whose opening with the solo entry of the main theme over preceding accompanying figures before the orchestral introduction became a model for him.

Saint-Saëns later published his Violin Concerto C major in 1879 as his second violin concerto with Durand & Fils, Paris. It was officially premiered in 1880 by the Belgian violinist Pierre Martin Marsick (later violin professor at the Paris Conservatoire and teacher of Carl Flesch, Jacques Thibaud, Cécile Chaminade and George Enescu).    

Saint-Saëns once said: "The solo in a concerto must be designed and treated like a dramatic role". In this violin concerto in C major - one could say - the young Saint-Saëns musically assumes the role of a young and free Romantic artist of the 19th century.

Listen to it here!

Listening companion:
NB: The following listening guide owes some of its observations and formulations to these contributions:
Duncan Druce: CD accompanying text to the hyperion recording with Philippe Graffin;
Albert Beaujean: Art. Saint-Saens, Concerto for Violin and Orchestra No. 2 in C major, in: Lexikon Orchestermusik Romantik edited by Wulf Konold.