Piano Concerto No. 5 in F Major, Op. 103, “Egyptian”
Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921)

THE STORY

In the late 19th century, French composer Camile Saint-Saëns numbered among the many European travelers in Cairo attracted by the booming travel industry. With an increase in opportunities for travel, and the publication of travel guidebooks and travelogues, Europeans began excursions to northern Africa. Ferdinand de Lesseps’ monumental opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 further expanded Europe’s presence in Egypt and in the same year Thomas Cook offered British travelers the first Cook & Son “tour package” to Egypt.

With regular winter visits to Egypt, Saint-Saëns offered his own “musical” travelogues. Prior to the Fifth Concerto, the composer wrote a one-movement piano and orchestra fantasy, Africa (1891), a work that won immense praise internationally as audiences from New York and Rio de Janeiro to Algiers marveled at the cross-rhythms, the Arabic modes, and the collage of colorful themes.

Five years later, Saint-Saëns offered yet another tribute to Egypt with this, his final piano concerto, composed during a three-week stay in Luxor and Cairo—the composer had fallen in love with the “open-air museum” lined with ancient tombs and temples. He dedicated the second movement of the concerto to a wide-ranging musical tour, writing that the passage in F sharp “even reached the Far East” and that the passage in G was inspired by “a love song that I heard sung by boatmen on the Nile.”

LISTEN FOR

• The sparkling simplicity of the F-major theme bubbling forward in contrast to the somber, minor-mode second theme
• Bell-like timbres in the middle of the Andante, as well as several exotic and rhythmically robust melodies highlighting the Egyptian landscape
• The jovial Molto allegro showcasing Saint-Saëns’ penchant for brilliance and virtuosity

INSTRUMENTATION

Solo piano; piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani, percussion, strings