Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns (1835 – 1921) was a
French composer, organist, conductor and pianist of the
Romantic era. His best-known works include Introduction
and Rondo Capriccioso (1863), the Second Piano Concerto
(1868), the First Cello Concerto (1872), Danse macabre
(1874), the opera Samson and Delilah (1877), the Third
Violin Concerto (1880), the Third ("Organ") Symphony
(1886) and The Carnival of the Animals (1886).
Saint-Saëns was a musical prodigy; he made his concert
debut ...(+)
Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns (1835 – 1921) was a
French composer, organist, conductor and pianist of the
Romantic era. His best-known works include Introduction
and Rondo Capriccioso (1863), the Second Piano Concerto
(1868), the First Cello Concerto (1872), Danse macabre
(1874), the opera Samson and Delilah (1877), the Third
Violin Concerto (1880), the Third ("Organ") Symphony
(1886) and The Carnival of the Animals (1886).
Saint-Saëns was a musical prodigy; he made his concert
debut at the age of ten. After studying at the Paris
Conservatoire he followed a conventional career as a
church organist, first at Saint-Merri, Paris and, from
1858, La Madeleine, the official church of the French
Empire. After leaving the post twenty years later, he
was a successful freelance pianist and composer, in
demand in Europe and the Americas.
As a young man, Saint-Saëns was enthusiastic for the
most modern music of the day, particularly that of
Schumann, Liszt and Wagner, although his own
compositions were generally within a conventional
classical tradition. He was a scholar of musical
history, and remained committed to the structures
worked out by earlier French composers. This brought
him into conflict in his later years with composers of
the impressionist and dodecaphonic schools of music;
although there were neoclassical elements in his music,
foreshadowing works by Stravinsky and Les Six, he was
often regarded as a reactionary in the decades around
the time of his death.
L’Attente (Waiting) is short lyrical piece for Voice
& Piano by composer Camille Saint-Saëns to words by
Victor Hugo. from the lyrics: Oh squirrel, climb high
up the larch till you stand on the topmost branch
however much it sways and bends! Oh stork, seek out a
higher perch: ascend with firmly-beating wings from the
tower of the village church up to the castle
battlements!
Old eagle, rise up from your eyrie: fly to the timeless
snow-capped mountains, to the peak most icy and high!
And you who are early to wake, never short of songs at
day-break, fly up, fly up, lively lark, lively lark,
climb to the sky!
Now can you see from up the tree or from the lofty
castle keep, the mountain or the sky's blue dome... can
you not see out on the plain the pennant streaming in
the breeze and the speeding horse that brings the man I
love returning home?1
Source: Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camille_Saint-Sa%C3%ABns
).
Although originally scored for Voice & Piano, I created
this Arrangement of "L’Attente" (Waiting) for Oboe &
Piano.
