The Swan by Camille Saint-Saëns
This masterwork of the cello repertory is a small part of a larger work entitled Carnival of the Animals. The French composer Camille Saint-Saëns wrote this as an amusement after an especially difficult concert tour. It was performed privately but he refused to have the full work published during his lifetime for fear that it might tarnish his image as a serious composer. In his will, he did give permission for it to be published posthumously. It has become perhaps his most-loved composition and is endlessly satisfying to perform.
This is a staple of every cellist’s repertoire but my personal favorite performance was one given by my students and The 5 Browns in 2009 at Lyceum Music Festival. We were performing the full work with the world-famous piano ensemble The 5 Browns (no relation). They spent the full week working with our students and performing. I just couldn’t deny any of the cellists the opportunity to perform this work so instead of one solo cellist the entire section performed in unison with The 5 Browns on piano.
I always think of the piano in this work as being the feet of the swan ever paddling while the cello gets to be the head and breast gliding effortlessly above the surface. There is difficulty in both parts. The pianist has six times the notes to play but the cello must make every shift and string crossing connect and glide. This piece is found in Suzuki Book 6. I hope to get that far in the video lessons. A lot goes into making hundreds of videos and blog posts FREE to anyone online. If enough people use the videos and blogs that it can at least pay for itself, then I will keep going as far as I can. So please spread the word about Learn2playCello follow and share it on social media, link the blogs where you can online, and help me keep making videos!
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