Introduction and Rondo capriccioso, Op.28

Saint-Saëns dedicated his Introduction and Rondo capriccioso to the glamorous Spanish virtuoso Pablo Sarasate. After the Concerto in A major Saint-Saëns had written for the same violinist four years earlier in 1859, it was obviously a little self-indulgence for both of them. While not stretching his imagination with anything at all profound or serious, the composer was able to exercise his considerable wit, his melodic facility, and his wonderful ear for instrumental colour. Similarly, while not having to draw on his emotional resources, the violinist had the opportunity to display his expressive elegance, his seductive stylishness, and his technical brilliance.

In spite of its malinconico qualification, the introductory Andante is not in the least bit melancholy. True, the violin does make a few sentimental gestures but these are intended not so much to imply any real passion as to cast the violinist in a romantic light and to offset the capriciousness of the rondo itself. That capriciousness is partly in the teasing syncopations of the rondo theme, which is introduced by the soloist as soon as the tempo changes to Allegro, and partly in the unpredictable succession of subsequent events – the faintly sardonic character of the main theme, the dramatic intervention of the orchestra, the contrastingly cheerful episode that follows, the soloist’s strangely thoughtful treatment of that same material and, after a recall of the main themes, the double-stopped cadenza that leads into a liberated and breathtaking sprint towards the closing bars.

There is as much Sarasate as Saint-Saëns in the Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso. The composer knew the violinist well, having first met him in 1859, when the latter was only 14: “Fresh and young as spring itself, the faint shadow of a moustache scarcely visible on his lip, he was already a famous virtuoso,” Saint-Saëns recalled later. “As if it were the easiest thing in the world he had come quite simply to ask me to write a concert for him. Flattered and charmed to the highest degree, I promised I would, and I kept my word with the Concerto in A major.”

The Introduction and Rondo capriccioso, which Saint-Saëns wrote for Pablo Sarasate four years after the Violin Concerto in A major, was obviously a little self-indulgence for both of them. While not stretching his imagination with anything at all profound or serious, the composer was able to exercise his considerable wit, his melodic facility, and his wonderful ear for instrumental colour. Similarly while not having to draw on his emotional resources, the violinist had the opportunity to display his expressive elegance, his seductive stylishness, and his technical brilliance. The piano, on the other hand, has little opportunity to display anything apart from fidelity in accompanying the aristocratic solo line.

In spite of its malinconico qualification, the introductory Andante is not in the least bit melancholy. True, the violin does make a few sentimental gestures, over A minor harmonies on the piano, and he does get involved in a crisis of demonstrative arpeggios. But these are intended not so much to imply any real passion as to cast the violinist in a romantic light and to offset the capriciousness of the rondo itself.

The capriciousness is partly in the teasing syncopations of the rondo theme, which is introduced by the soloist as soon as the tempo changes to Allegro, and partly in the unpredictable succession of subsequent events. Any ordinary composer, for example, would have switched to the major at the beginning of the Rondo. Saint-Saëns stays with A minor - which, together with the steady tread of the accompaniment, gives the main theme a faintly sardonic character. The change of key to the relative major for a contrastingly cheerful episode is certainly not unpredictable but the violin’s harmonically ambiguous review of the new theme, in a passage curiously marked con morbidezza, certainly is. Although its cheerful character is soon restored to it, the A major that everyone is waiting for is not achieved until after a last recall of the main rondo theme, a multi-stopped cadenza, and a change of tempo for a breathless sprint through the coda to the final bars.

programme notes by Gerald Larner©