... Then at
Weimar one day I spoke to Liszt about it, and he said to me, quite
trustingly and without having heard a note, 'Finish your work; I will
have it performed here.' The events of 1870 delayed its performance for
several years." (_Revue Musicale_, 8 November, 1901).]
[Footnote 135: _Portraits et Souvenirs_.]
This influence seems to me to explain some of M. Saint-Saens' work. Not
only is this influence evident in his symphonic poems--some of his best
work--but it is to be found in his suites for orchestra, his fantasias,
and his rhapsodies, where the descriptive and narrative element is
strong. "Music should charm unaided," said M. Saint-Saens; "but its
effect is much finer when we use our imagination and let it flow in some
particular channel, thus imaging the music. It is then that all the
faculties of the soul are brought into play for the same end. What art
gains from this is not greater beauty, but a wider field for its
scope--that is, a greater variety of form and a larger liberty."[136]
* * * * *
And so we find that M. Saint-Saens has taken part in the vigorous
attempt of modern German symphony writers to bring into music some of
the power of the other arts: poetry, painting, philosophy, romance,
drama--the whole of life.
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