“If all you know of Camille Saint-Saëns is ‘Carnival of the Animals’ and that tune from the movie ‘Babe,’ Thierry Fischer and the Utah Symphony are about to give you a crash course,” writes Catherine Reese Newton in Sunday’s (11/26) Salt Lake Tribune (Utah). “The next two weekends of concerts will be devoted to music of the French composer. Fischer and the orchestra are recording all five of Saint-Saëns’ symphonies for the Hyperion label…. This coming week brings Symphony No. 3, which is easily the composer’s most popular and recognizable symphony thanks to its prominent use of the organ and that unforgettable tune. The soloist will be American organist Paul Jacobs…. Jacobs explained [that] Saint-Saëns didn’t give explicit instructions on which sets of pipes to use, so ‘the organist has to fill in the blanks’ … The concerts Friday and Saturday [will include] the ‘Bacchanale’ from Saint-Saëns’ opera ‘Samson et Dalila’ and three symphonic tableaus arranged from his incidental music for Eugène Brieux’s play ‘La Foi (Faith).’… One of next week’s pieces—‘Urbs Roma’ … will be … sharing the bill with … ‘Carnival of the Animals’ and Piano Concerto No. 2. Canadian pianist Louis Lortie will be the soloist.”
Posted November 28, 2017
