Camille Saint-Saëns
Violin Concerto no. 3 b minor op. 61
Now, for the first time, Henle publishes an urtext edition of this famous violin concerto (it is also the first German edition). The detailed preface provides exhaustive information on the work's genesis and sources. Ernst Schliephake has sought the advice of Ruggiero Ricci for the fingering and bowing marks, and Johannes Umbreit has revised the composer's estimable piano reduction to make it more playable and to meet the main requirement of an urtext edition: maximum fidelity to the original orchestral score.
About the Composer
Camille Saint-Saëns
Saint-Saëns was one of the most multifaceted musicians of the second half of the nineteenth century in France. Regarded as a Classicist, he also wrote pieces with an Impressionist character to their sound, and one composition in quarter-tones. As a critic and essayist he was involved in the first complete editions of Rameau’s and Gluck’s works.
| 1835 | Born in Paris on October 9. Early comprehensive education. |
| 1848–52 | Studies at the Conservatoire de Paris. |
| 1853 | Organist at St. Merry Church in Paris. |
| 1853–59 | First large-scale works: Symphony No. 1, Op. 2 (1853), and No. 2, Op. 55 (1859); Piano Concerto No. 1, Op. 17 (1858); Violin Concerto No. 1, Op. 20 (1859); Mass, Op. 4 (1856); he attempts to arrive at unique forms. |
| 1857–77 | Organist at La Madeleine in Paris. |
| 1861–65 | He teaches at the École de Musique Classique et Religieuse Niedermeyer. |
| 1871 | Founding of the Société Nationale de musique. |
| 1871–77 | Composition of symphonic poems “Le rouet d’Omphale” (“The Wheel of Omphale,” 1871), “Phaéton” (1873), “Danse macabre” (1874), “La jeunesse d’Hercule” (1877). |
| 1876 | Attends the performance of the Ring in Bayreuth. |
| 1877 | Performance in Weimar of his opera “Samson et Dalila.” |
| 1881 | Member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts. |
| 1883 | Performance in Paris of his opera “Henry VIII.” |
| 1885 | Publication of the treatise “Harmonie et mélodie.” |
| 1886 | Performance in London of his Organ Symphony (Symphony No. 3 in C minor): major work with thematic transformation after Liszt’s model. Composition of “The Carnival of the Animals,” the publication of which he forbade during his lifetime. |
| 1899 | Publication of the book “Portraits et souvenirs.” |
| 1900 | Cantata “Le feu celeste” in praise of electricity, for the opening of the Exposition Universelle. |
| 1921 | Death in Algiers on December 16. |
About the Authors
Peter Jost (Editor)
Dr. Peter Jost, born in 1960 in Diefflen/Saar, read musicology, German and comparative studies at Saarland University in Saarbrücken. He did his PhD in 1988 with a thesis on Robert Schumann’s Waldszenen.
From November 1991 to April 2009 he was a research associate at the Richard Wagner Complete Edition in Munich, and since May 2009 has been an editor at G. Henle Publishers. His Urtext editions comprise predominantly French music of the 19th and 20th centuries, including works by Lalo, Saint-Saëns and Ravel.
Johannes Umbreit (Piano reduction)
Prof. Johannes Umbreit studied the piano at the Musikhochschule in Munich. From 1987 onwards he was a regular accompanist at courses given by Wolfgang Schneiderhan, Thomas Brandis, Ljerko Spiller, Igor Ozim, Olga Woitowa, Ernő Sebestyén, Walter Nothas, F. Andrejevsky, Denis Zsigmondy and Zakhar Bron amongst others. He has appeared in numerous radio and TV broadcasts and plays chamber music with members of the Bavarian State Orchestra, the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra.
He is on the jury of different international competitions and has been invited to several international music festivals. Umbreit was a teacher for almost ten years at the Musikhochschule in Munich and at the same time a lecturer for chamber music and piano accompaniment at the Richard Strauss Conservatory. Since 2008 he has been a lecturer at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München. As the long-serving managing director of the Richard-Strauss-Gesellschaft, he was made an honorary member of the board in 2009. In May 2011, the Bavarian Minister of Culture appointed Johannes Umbreit an honorary professor of the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München on the suggestion of its academic senate.
Ernst Schliephake (Fingering and bowing for Violin)
Ernst Schliephake was born in 1962. At the age of seven he was already a state prize-winner in the category violin at the young people’s music competition “Jugend musiziert”; the following year he achieved the same result with the clarinet. He was taught by Klaus Speicher and Heinz Hepp (violin and clarinet) and studied the violin in 1979 with Prof. Lukas David in Detmold, working as his assistant between 1983 and 1985. Aside from playing the violin in Tibor Varga’s chamber orchestra, he also played many chamber concerts with him, predominantly as a clarinettist. A master-class with Ruggiero Ricci 1981, led to an intensive collaboration and friendship.
Since 1986 he has been a violinist with the Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Bavarian State Opera, and since 1989 has been the associate concertmaster with the Munich Symphony Orchestra.
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