Élégie in D for violin and piano Op.143 (1915)

Neither of the two violin Elégies Saint-Saëns wrote in his early 60s is very elegiac. Of the two, however, the second in F Op.160, written in the memory of the composer’s late friend and colleague Alexis de Castillon, is the more overtly emotional. The first in D Op.143 was written as a thank-you present for the retired violinist Henry Heyman whose guest he had been on a visit to San Francisco in 1915. If at first it seems too bland to justify its title, it does become more expressive when it changes key to C sharp minor and if on its return to F major it seems too concerned with bravura detail, it does experience a passionate development before the reprise of the D major opening section.