Camille Saint-Saëns
Violoncello Concerto no. 1 a minor op. 33
The a-minor Concerto, is a true gem in the repertoire of great cello music. David Geringas provided the fingerings for this Urtext edition for which editor Peter Jost supplied a detailed preface. Johannes Umbreit has revised the composer's highly playable piano reduction to suit the needs of today's performers.
Content/Details
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.
David Geringas (Fingering and bowing for Violoncello)
Alterations to the original bowings and dynamics are clearly marked, and the edition follows the composer’s own piano reduction of the work which included additions to the solo cello part. Thankfully, unlike my own French this one contains bar numbers, and some very carefully-organised pageturns in the piano part.
Music Teacher, 2003Dieses Konzert ist eine wahre Perle des großen Cellorepertoires. Die Urtextausgabe wurde von David Geringas eingerichtet und mit einem ausführlichen Vorwort des Herausgebers Peter Jost versehen. Johannes Umbreit hat den originalen, durchweg gut spielbaren Klavierauszug des Komponisten unter praktischen Gesichtspunkten neu überarbeitet.
Pizzicato, 2002Saint-Saëns has entered the Henle catalogue with three new publications at once. One, the a-minor Concerto, is a jewel in the repertoire of great cello music. This urtext edition has been marked up by David Geringas and supplied with a detailed preface by the editor, Peter Jost. Johannes Umbreit has revised the composer’s highly playable piano reduction to suit the needs of today’s performers.
Music Teacher Magazine, 2002recommendations
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Further editions of this title
Further editions of this title