"Bacchanale" from Samson and Delilah
Camille Saint-Saëns
Born: October 9, 1835, Paris, France
Died: December 16, 1921, Algiers, Algeria
Year Composed: 1867
Length: c. 7 minutes
World Premiere: 1877, Weimar, Germany
Last ISO Performance: June 2025 with conductor Enrico Lopez-Yañez
Instrumentation: 2 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 2 trumpets and 2 cornets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp, and strings

Camille Saint-Saëns began composing what would become his most enduring work for stage, the opera Samson et Delilah, in 1867. Just two years after his first opera failed to see any hint of positive reception, Saint-Saëns originally planned Samson as an oratorio. He was inspired by Handel’s Creation and Mendelssohn’s Elijah, but the librettist urged him to expand the biblical story of Samson into a fully staged opera. Before Samson could be completed, Saint-Saëns enlisted in the French National Guard to serve in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870–71. Upon returning, Saint-Saëns was encouraged by an increased interest in French art and again sat down to complete Samson. After receiving criticism for using a biblical story as the basis for a dramatic opera, though there was significant musical precedent to do so, Saint-Saëns halted work on Samson, discouraged. Franz Liszt urged Saint-Saëns to press on, and Saint-Saëns vowed to complete Samson et Delilah. Tirelessly writing, editing, and staging small sections at a time, Saint-Saëns tinkered from 1872–75. No French opera house was interested in staging the work, calling it “box office poison” due to the subject matter. Finally Liszt would spearhead a production, and the premiere of Samson et Delilah took place in Weimar, 1877. It would take another 25 years for the work to gain popularity in the opera world. 

The Bacchanale occurs in the final act, after Samson has been captured and enslaved by the Philistines. Blinded and resigned to death, Samson offers his life as a sacrifice for the freeing of his people. He is led to the Temple of Dagon where a seductive oboe cadenza accompanies an equally alluring ballet of Philistine priests and priestesses as they prepare for a religious sacrifice. Blaring horns become savage as the strings present the Bacchanale theme. 

Historically, a “bacchanale” is a melody or song dedicated to the ancient Roman god of wine and fertility, Bacchus. Due to the nature of its dedicatee, most bacchanales depict scenes of chaotic ecstasy and lewd behavior. Although he would never recognize these traits in his own music, Saint-Saëns’ Bacchanale is very much in this category; the work begins rhapsodically and flowing, but quickly evolves into a full-orchestral representation of drunken debauchery. The unrelenting timpani figure harbors a sense of wild anticipation churning underneath another ravishing oboe solo, adding to the overall exoticism of the scene.