Piano Concerto No.5 in F major, Op.103

It is said that the lovely main theme of the slow movement of the Fifth Piano Concerto was noted down by Saint-Saëns on the cuff of his starched shirt as he floated down the Nile listening to the singing of Egyptian boatmen. Whether the story is true or not - and, certainly, that theme does derives from a Nubian love song - it is worth repeating because it so neatly sums up the character of the Concerto, which offers an intriguing mixture of exotic material on the one hand and European formality on the other.

The work was composed for the most part in Luxor in 1896 on one of the winter trips to the Middle East that the composer regularly took at this stage in his life. If the opening Allegro moderato might just as well have been written in his study in Paris, it is no less entertaining for that. The first main theme, quietly introduced by the soloist after a modest orchestral introduction, has a simply conceived but attractive rhythmic lilt to it. The second subject, preceded by a well starched passage of counterpoint, makes a charmingly sentimental contrast as it first appears on the piano with its expressively wide intervals in the right hand poised over rising arpeggios in the left. There are few heroic exploits for the pianist to perform here and, although there are one or two echoes of Brahms in the development section, the solo role is not so much a matter of grandeur as of light-fingered agility.

If the opening of the slow movement - in its vigorously syncopated rhythms on the strings and its melodic line passionately declaimed in octaves on the piano - seems at least as Spanish as Arabic that is presumably because so much of flamenco derives from North Africa anyway. The Nubian love song is introduced by the soloist’s left hand in an enchanting episode gently coloured by repeated notes and arpeggios in the right hand and sustained harmonies in the strings. The next solo episode ventures even further east, exotic bell-like sounds in the right hand accompanying a pentatonic Chinese or Balinese sort of tune in the left and blending effectively with subtle strokes of the tam-tam.

Most of the virtuoso content of the work is concentrated in the exhilaratingly homeward-bound last movement. A breathless display of keyboard bravura based on two well contrasted themes, it was clearly designed to make a brilliant impression at the concert in Paris - a celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the composer’s first appearance as a pianist - where Saint-Saëns was to introduce his new score to the public.