The Muse, the Poet, the Composer and his Animals

Painting of celloist and violinist

Tea and the Symphony

Today was another wonderful concert, Saint-Saëns In The Morning, at the operahouse by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. It was a full Camille Saint-Saëns program. I must admit that I haven’t listened to Saint-Saëns very much before, I guessed that it would be pretty and I was right.

La Muse et Le poète

The first piece on the program was ‘La Muse et le poète (The Muse and the Poet). A beautiful piece for solo violin and cello. The string part or the orchestra was quite small especially when there was 3 trombones and 2 trumpets. But since they seemed to only play about 4 bars it was nicely balanced. The woodwind lines were beautiful. I really enjoyed it. It was the orchestra’s first performance of the piece. Interesting how some pieces are just overlooked.

Carnival of (Australian) Animals

The second piece was ‘La carnaval des animaux’ with an Australian twist, ‘Carnival of (Australian) Animals’. The words have been changed by Bradley Trevor Greive to match the movements to Australian animals. Excitingly the narrator was Richard Morecroft. Only thing missing was his flying fox. My favourite movement was ‘The Happy Heavyweight – The Dugong’, the double bass solo was beautiful. The piece is for a very small orchestra of strings, a flute, a clarinet, a celesta and mallet percussion with the main feature being 2 pianos. The music and the text was funny, beautiful and uplifting. A most enjoyable concert.

Check out a playlist of the pieces on Spotify
Download the score for The Muse and the Poet
Download the score for Carnival of the Animals

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