Saturday, August 11 begins with Panel 1: “Prodigy, Polymath, Globetrotter and Reactionary,” held in Olin Hall from 10 a.m. to 12 noon. It’s followed at 1:30 p.m. in the same venue by Program 2: “Performing, Composing and Arranging for Concert Life,” contextualizing the composer within the Parisian musical world of his day, with a pre-concert talk by Geoffrey Burleson at 1 p.m. A 7 p.m. pre-concert talk by Christopher H. Gibbs introduces Program 3: “Saint-Saëns, a French Beethoven?” with a curtain time of 8 p.m. in the Sosnoff Theater. The all-Saint-Saëns program will include one of the composer’s masterworks, the Third (a/k/a “Organ”) Symphony.
His friend Liszt called Saint-Saëns the “greatest organist in the world,” and the composer’s prowess as a keyboard virtuoso comes into focus in Program 4. “The Organ, King of Instruments” begins at 10 a.m. in the Sosnoff Theater on Sunday, August 12. Program 5, “Ars Gallica and French National Sentiment,” examines the composer’s role as co-founder of the Société Nationale de Musique in 1871. This chamber music program begins in Olin Hall at 1:30 p.m. following a 1 p.m. talk. “Zoological Fantasies: Carnival of the Animals Revisited” is the kid-friendly theme for Program 6 on Sunday evening, August 12, reexamining the composition that Saint-Saëns himself tried hardest to suppress. There will be a 5 p.m. pre-concert talk by Mitchell Morris, and the concert in the Sosnoff Theater begins at 5:30 p.m.
Weekend 2: “Confronting Modernism” gets underway with Program 7 on Friday, August 17, “Proust and Music.” A pre-concert panel at 7 p.m. in the Sosnoff Theater leads into the 8:30 p.m. performance, which will include a reading of Proust’s famous “Vinteuil Sonata” passage, commonly identified with Saint-Saëns’ Violin Sonata in D minor.
On Saturday, August 18 from 10 a.m. to 12 noon in Olin Hall, Panel 2 will address the topic “Exporting Western Music Past and Present.” Program 8, “La musique ancienne et moderne,” will examine the allure of the Baroque, especially Rameau, for Saint-Saëns and his peers. That chamber concert begins at 1:30 p.m., with a 1 p.m. pre-concert talk, in Olin Hall. On Saturday night, Program 9: “The Spiritual Sensibility” presents a rare performance of Saint-Saëns’ unjustly neglected oratorio The Flood, which ranks among his finest work. A pre-concert talk by Byron Adams at 7 p.m. leads into the concert at 8 p.m. in the Sosnoff Theater.
Saint-Saëns was the first major composer to write an original score for a motion picture: 1908’s L’assassinat du duc de Guise. That work will be part of a performance with commentary by Daniel Goldmark on Sunday, August 19 at 10 a.m. in Olin Hall, Program 10: “From Melodrama to Film.” Saint-Saëns’ work foreshadowed many 20th-century stylistic tropes, like emotional restraint, lightness of texture and playful engagement with music of the past, and Program 11: “Unexpected Correspondences: Saint-Saëns and the New Generation” will juxtapose two of his last chamber works with Modernist compositions by Debussy and Stravinsky, both of whose styles he reputedly detested. A 1 p.m. pre-concert talk by Richard Wilson precedes the 1:30 p.m. concert in Olin Hall. The final concert on Sunday evening, Program 12: “Out of the Shadow of Samson and Delilah: Saint-Saëns’ Other Grand Opera,” ends the two-weekend blowout with a bang with a performance of Henry VIII. It will begin at 4:30 p.m. in the Sosnoff Theater, after a 3:30 p.m. pre-concert talk by Hugh Macdonald.
To view the full Bard Music Festival schedule, visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/bmf/2012. For tickets and further information on all SummerScape events, call the Fisher Center box office at (845) 758-7900 or visit www.fishercenter.bard.edu.
The 2012 Bard Music Festival, “Saint-Saëns and His World,” runs Fridays through Sundays, August 10 to 12 and 17 to 19 on the Bard College campus in Annandale-on-Hudson. Themed programs include orchestral concerts with the American Symphony Orchestra in the Sosnoff Theatre at 8 p.m. on Friday and Saturday evenings, at 5:30 p.m. on Sunday, August 12 and at 6:30 p.m. on Sunday, August 19. Ticket prices range from $25 to $75. Chamber concerts begin at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday afternoons and at 10 a.m. on Sunday mornings in Olin Hall; tickets cost $30 to $35. Panel discussions begin at 10 a.m. Saturdays in Olin Hall; admission is free. See the full schedule and program details at https://fishercenter.bard.edu/bmf/2012. To order tickets call (845) 758-7900 or visit www.fishercenter.bard.edu.
