Suite algérienne (Algerian Suite) Op.60

An inveterate traveller, particularly in the second half of his long life, Saint-Saëns had a special affection for Algeria, then a French colony, which he first visited in his late 30s and which he revisited many times before he died there in the winter of 1921. Not least among the attractions of Algeria was its folk music, the dances he saw in its cafés and the love songs he heard at night. He noted down their exotic tunes and rhythms to use them in his own music. As early as 1875, for example, he wrote Rêverie du soir which was so successful on its first performance in Paris in 1879 that his publisher persuaded him to add three movements to it and so complete a Suite algérienne based on his experience of the sights and sounds of the place.

The work begins with a view of the city of Algiers from the ship that brought him there: ‘From the deck of the ship, still rocking on the great swell,’ the composer wrote, ‘you see the panorama of the city of Algiers. You hear a mixture of all sorts of sounds and in the midst of them you catch the cry of    “Ali Allah! Mohammed rassoul Allah!” With a last sway the ship anchors in the port.’ The rocking motion of the ship is felt only faintly at first in a melody rising and falling on lower strings, then on woodwind as it gathers more and more strength. It reaches a climax just before the first cry of “Ali Allah! Mohammed rassoul Allah!” is heard on trumpets and horns.

The second movement is a colourful if rather over-civilised    Moorish rhapsody: ‘In one of the many moorish cafés in the old town the Arabs perform their traditional dances, lascivious and wild in turn, to the sound of flutes, rebabs and tambourines.’ The well-mannered counterpoint that develops in the first part is a little surprising in this context but with the change of tempo to Allegro moderato the melodic style is more exotic, though scarcely “lascivious,” and with the entry of a solo flute accompanied by timpani and tambourine the sound is convincingly primitive if not exactly “wild.”

The most atmospheric as well as the earliest of the four movements is Rêverie du soir (Evening Reverie) recalling on music the composer once heard at Blidah: ‘Under the palm trees of the oasis, in the perfumed night, you hear a long love song and the caressing refrain of a flute.’ Based on the melody introduced by two flutes over pizzicato strings, it is a poetic inspiration, touchingly intimate when the love song is taken up by a solo viola, increasingly passionate as it passes to violins before it dies away into the night.

In the Marche militaire française (French Military March) we are reminded that, for a French composer, one of the attractions of Algiers was the reassuring presence of the French military. ‘Returning to Algiers, among the picturesque bazaars and Moorish cafés, you hear the march of a French regiment, the military manner of which contrasts with the languorous rhythms and melodies of the Orient.’ Splendidly tuneful but making more use of strings and woodwind than most marches of its kind, it reserves it heavy brass effects and trumpet fanfares for the triumphant ending.

Gerald Larner ©2011