Program Notes

CAMILLE SAINT-SAENS
Septet, Op. 65 (1879-80)
Approximate duration: 17 minutes

Camille Saint-Saens was a musical prodigy in his youth and a polymath in adulthood, with the eclectic sense of humor that comes with that degree of intelligence. His social circle included the mathematician Emile Lemoine and his amateur musical society, La Trompette, whose farcical name demanded from Saint-Saens a chamber work featuring the instrument. Thus was born the delightfully charming Septet for trumpet, string quartet, bass and piano, whose premiere was a Christmas gift to Lemoine in 1880.

Despite its unusual scoring, the Septet was hugely popular upon its premiere, owing to the infectious joy of the French dance forms it is styled upon. The trumpet part, which toes the line so cleverly between Baroque elegance and caricature, is significant as it aligns with the technological development of the valved trumpet. The mass appeal and success of the Septet must have come as somewhat of a surprise to Saint-Saens, who initially dismissed the idea as ridiculous; one has to wonder how his sarcastic alternative of a piece for “guitar and 13 trombones” would have turned out instead.

TŌRU TAKEMITSU
Rain Spell for Flute, Clarinet, Harp, Piano and Vibraphone (1982)
Approximate duration: 10 minutes

It is hard to name a composer who mastered the art of timbre quite like Tōru Takemitsu. Born in Tokyo, Takemitsu was exposed to Western classical music through a secret radio as a conscripted soldier during World War II and spent the following decades experimenting with cultural fusion outside the constraints of a traditional music education. During the 1980s, Takemitsu developed a compositional metaphor for fluid harmony he called the “sea of tonality,” and as a result wrote many water-inspired works, including 1982’s Rain Spell.

Rain Spell is scored for flute, clarinet, harp, piano and vibraphone, all instruments ideally suited to the quick arpeggiated runs one associates with raindrops, and yet Takemitsu’s writing seems more interested in the “spell” part of the title. As is typical in Takemitsu’s oeuvre, Rain Spell is an exploration of texture and resonance rather than melody. The use of extended techniques and tasteful silence evokes a sense of mystic ritual and anticipation that emphasizes the vast power of nature over human lives.

CLAUDE DEBUSSY
Sonata for Violin and Piano, CD 148 (1917)
Approximate duration: 12 minutes

The year 1917 saw Claude Debussy disturbed both by the degenerative societal effects of World War I and his own progressing colon cancer. A performance of the Saint-Saens Septet from earlier in this program inspired him (perhaps out of spite for his rival) to revisit chamber music for the first time in more than 20 years with a planned cycle of six sonatas; the third, the Violin Sonata, would become Debussy’s swan song in both composition and public performance.

Like many composers, Debussy reacted to the war by embracing a sense of musical nationalism, which appears in the score both sonically and in its unique signature: Claude Debussy, musicien Francais. With a runtime of less than 15 minutes, the Sonata is brief and frenetic in its whimsy, and demands of its performers a capricious surrealism. In the composer’s own words: “By one of those very human contradictions, it’s full of tumultuous joy. In the future, don’t be taken in by works that seem to fly through the air; they’ve often been wallowing in the shadows of a gloomy brain.”

JEFFREY MUMFORD
through a stillness brightening (2011)
Approximate duration: 11 minutes

American composer Jeffrey Mumford initially had aspirations to be a visual artist, having been inspired by clouds and sunlight from an early age. This motif perseveres in his musical works through lyrical titles including the focus of blue light, the promise of the far horizon and today’s piece for solo violin and ensemble, through a stillness brightening. “I like to think that people could walk into one of my pieces,” he says, “like you can walk into a painting or a video installation.”

Written in 2011 for violinist Miranda Cuckson and the Argento Ensemble, through a stillness brightening recreates the glinting and glittering of light through a condensed orchestra of clarinet, bassoon, marimba, trumpet, trombone, vibraphone and bass. High harmonics in the violin combine with the blended timbres of the ensemble to create a sound so bright you have to squint against it. Mumford’s title is apt: it’s as though the listener is placed within a prism, watching reflections and refractions create their own illusions of motion.

JEAN FRANCAIX
Quintet No. 2 for Flute, Strings and Harp (1989)
Approximate duration: 14 minutes

The prolific French composer Jean Francaix was one of the last people with a link to the great French interwar musical scene. He studied with Nadia Boulanger, performed alongside Francis Poulenc, and was championed at an early age by Maurice Ravel, who wrote to the boy’s parents, “Among the child’s gifts, I observe above all the most fruitful an artist can possess, that of curiosity. You must not stifle these precious gifts, now or ever.” Francaix, never stifled, would go on to write more than 200 works.

Of these works, Francaix wrote two pieces for the combination of flute, harp and string trio, 55 years apart. The first was an early work, from 1934, written for the Quintette instrumental de Paris founded by legendary flutist Rene Le Roy. It is hard to say what could have compelled Francaix to revisit the unusual scoring in 1989, except that his old age led him to compose a number of homages to his predecessors and perhaps to his younger self as well. Both follow the same four-movement structure, although the Quintet No. 2 opens jovially where the first is somber; there is a toy-music-box quality to the high harp in the Allegrissimo and the pizzicatos of the Scherzo.

– © 2026 Carys Sutherland

Carys Sutherland is Principal Horn of Symphony Nova Scotia and a regular program writer for The Juilliard School, her alma mater.