Saint-Saëns’ Organ Symphony

The programmes Antonio Pappano conducts with the Concertgebouw Orchestra show his amazing versatility. This time, he combines Lili Boulanger’s airy swan song and a dramatic song cycle by Frank Martin with Camille Saint-Saëns’ majestic Third Symphony. Saint-Saëns realised he had reached the boundaries of his orchestral abilities in this work, known as the ‘Organ Symphony,’ saying, ‘I gave everything to it I was able to give. What I have here accomplished, I will never achieve again.’ And although the organ, played here by Iveta Apkalna, is not continually heard, it provides an amazingly effective addition to the orchestral sound in the slow movement and finale. 

D’un matin de printemps is the last orchestral work Lili Boulanger wrote before she died in March 1918 at the age of twenty-four. Boulanger was aware that she would never again see the blossoms of spring. Yet far from tragic, this music is full of light, life, and hope. With Frank Martin, the acceptance of death only arrives at the end of his masterful song cycle; in it, the wealthy Jedermann (Everyman) is visited during a lavish banquet by Death. He suddenly discovers that there is no one and nothing he can rely on. However, by repenting and accepting his faith, he is ultimately redeemed.