Saint-Saëns: Cello Concerto No. 1 | Gautier Capuçon, Gábor Takács-Nagy and the VFCO

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Do you love cello music from the Romantic era? The Cello Concerto No. 1 in A Minor, Op. 33 by Camille Saint-Saëns is one of the most frequently performed and popular cello pieces in music history. Here, it is being interpreted by French cellist Gautier Capuçon and the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra (VFCO) under the direction of Gábor Takács-Nagy on July 27, 2012, at the Verbier Festival.

The piece grants the soloist many opportunities to shine as a virtuoso as she puts the tremendous lyrical qualities of her instrument on full display. Saint-Saëns managed the tricky task of maintaining the tonal balance between the symphonic orchestra, which was by no means reduced to a mere accompaniment role, and the solo cello.

(00:00) Coming on stage
(00:16) I. Allegro non troppo
(06:22) II. Allegretto con moto
(11:30) III. Molto allegro

French pianist, conductor, musicologist, and composer Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) is still known today for his “great zoological fantasy,” the “Carnival of the Animals,” as well as his opera “Samson and Dalila.” But his Cello Concerto No. 1 in A Minor, Op. 33 is also an integral part of the great cello virtuoso’s repertoire and is not only popular with audiences but also has a number of unusual qualities.

For one thing, there are three movements in this cello concerto from 1872, but, at the same time, the work is actually one continuous movement in which each individual movement merges into the next. This was unusual for Camille Saint-Saëns, who was one of the more traditional composers of the Romantic period, adhering to traditional concerto forms. Moreover, he peppered the third movement of his cello concerto with complicated solo parts in all of the cello’s registers. He dedicated the work to French cellist and viola da gamba player Auguste Tolbecque. It was he who premiered the work in Paris in January 1873.

Many of his contemporaries later considered Saint-Saëns’ Cello Concerto No. 1 in A Minor, Op. 33 to be the greatest cello concerto of all time. It paved Saint-Saëns’ way into French musical society. In addition to the merging of individual movements, another special feature of the Cello Concerto is that the composer does not begin with an orchestral introduction, as is customary, and the solo instrument comes in later.

The orchestra plays only a single chord, and the cello enters in immediately and forcefully. The first movement feels like a dialog between cello and orchestra. The second movement opens turbulently and ends in a minuet. In the third movement, motifs from the first movement are taken up and reworked with new themes. In this way, all three movements come together.

Gautier Capuçon makes the cello cry, lament and rejoice. With the timbres that he elicits from his instrument, the Frenchman fills concert halls around the world and amazes his audiences every time. He was born in Chambéry, France, in 1981 and began playing the cello at the age of five. He later studied at the Conservatoire National Supérieur in Paris before attending Heinrich Schiff's master class in Vienna. Gautier Capuçon plays a cello made by Matteo Goffriller in 1701.

© 2012 Idéale Audience

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