Saint-Saens: Symphony No. 3 "Organ" (HDCD review)

Also, Introduction and Rondo capriccioso; La muse et le poete. Jan Kraybill, organ; Michael Stern, Kansas City Symphony. Reference Recordings RR-136.

We have come to expect only the best from Reference Recordings, especially those releases made by their chief engineer and company co-founder Keith Johnson. The present disc is no exception.

Now, as I've said before, any time a company records a major repertoire item, it faces stiff competition from dozens, sometimes hundreds, of alternative recordings. So, to entice a potential buyer, the record company has to offer either a performance of superior quality or sound that knocks your socks off. Preferably both. With RR's release of Saint-Saens's "Organ" Symphony, they almost succeed with the former and certainly accomplish the latter. It's another fine Reference Recordings issue.

French composer Camille Saint-Saens (1835-1921) said of himself, "I produce music as an apple tree produces apples," by which I suppose he meant he was quite prolific and everything came naturally to him. By the time the Philharmonic Society commissioned him to write his Symphony No. 3 in 1886, audiences already recognized him as the greatest living French composer of his time. These days, we know him particularly for his opera Samson et Dalila, the tone poems in Carnival of the Animals, the First Cello Concerto, the Second Piano Concerto, the Third Violin Concerto, the little Dance macabre, and, of course, the Third Symphony.

The Symphony No. 3 in C minor, Op. 78, is a colorful, sometimes bombastic, but thoroughly enjoyable piece of music. Although audiences recognize the piece by its nickname, the "Organ Symphony," the organ really has only a part in the second-movement Adagio and the later segment of the Finale. Saint-Saëns called the work a symphony with organ, and said of it, "I gave everything to it I was able to give. What I have here accomplished, I will never achieve again." It appears he knew what he was talking about (or he was too contrary to go back on his words) because even though he lived another thirty-five years, he never wrote another symphony, organ or otherwise.

Anyway, I have to say something up front about Maestro Stern's interpretation of the symphony: Although I like it, it lacks the sheer adrenaline rush of Charles Munch's performance with the Boston Symphony (RCA or JVC), the suave lyricism of Jean Martinon's rendering with the Orchestre National de l'ORTF (EMI or Brilliant Classics), and the overall thrilling and poetic moments of Louis Fremaux's account with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (EMI or Klavier). That said, Stern holds his own pretty well.

Michael Stern
Under Stern, the symphony's opening movement is appropriately restless, its familiar theme reworked several times over in various guises and tempos. It leads smoothly into the Poco adagio, which sounds just as serene as Saint-Saens intended (the composer described it as "extremely peaceful and contemplative"). When the organ enters (Jan Kraybill performing on the Julia Irene Kauffman Casavant Organ), it should appear as a huge, warm, gentle wave rolling over us at the beach, and it does. It's a most-refreshing experience, because in some recordings the primary notes are so low the recording barely reproduces them. Here, we actually feel them.

In the final movements, Stern allows the music to expand from a relatively controlled opening to an explosive conclusion. By leaving the bulk of the fireworks to the end, Stern builds a cumulative effect, which may not be initially very impressive but leaves one with a satisfying feeling of exhilaration by the time it's over. Oh, and when that organ thunders in at the last, it does so with authority. If you live close to neighbors, keep it down.

The disc couplings for the symphony are Saint-Saens's fairly well known Introduction and Rondo capriccioso and the less well known La muse et le poete. Violinist Noah Geller in the Capriccioso and violinist Noah Geller and cellist Mark Gibbs in La muse play some lovely notes, and the orchestral accompaniment sounds flawless. Because Saint-Saens composed the Capriccioso for the virtuoso violinist Pablo de Sarasate, you would figure on its being a vehicle for showing off the soloist's skills, and Mr. Geller is up to the challenge. In Le muse et le poete--a late work (1910) combining elements of a double concerto and tone poem--the violin takes the Muse's part and the cello voices the Poet. This was the first time I'd heard it, and it's beautiful. What a great revelation.

Producer and editor David Frost, executive producers J. Tamblyn Henderson and Marcia Gordon Martin, recordist Sean Royce Martin, and engineer Keith O. Johnson recorded the music at Helzberg Hall, Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, Kansas City, Missouri in June 2013. "Professor" Johnson made the 24-bit recording using his patented HDCD (High Definition Compatible Digital) encoding process.

The resultant sound is resplendent and ideally captures the grandeur of Saint-Saens's music. The orchestra displays wonderful dimensionality. We hear it laid out before us in four dimensions: side to side and front to back, with air around the instruments. There is also a great dynamic spread with plenty of punch (meaning it sounds like a real orchestra should sound), a modest distancing, good midrange transparency, and a mild hall resonance to set it all off in a most-natural manner. Most important for the symphony, the organ sounds deep, rich, solid, and clean. As usual with Reference Recordings, this is splendidly lifelike sound, with no artificial enhancement, close-up miking, or editing-console gimmicky.

JJP

To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click here:


Meet the Staff

Meet the Staff
John J. Puccio, Founder and Contributor

Understand, I'm just an everyday guy reacting to something I love. And I've been doing it for a very long time, my appreciation for classical music starting with the musical excerpts on the Big Jon and Sparkie radio show in the early Fifties and the purchase of my first recording, The 101 Strings Play the Classics, around 1956. In the late Sixties I began teaching high school English and Film Studies as well as becoming interested in hi-fi, my audio ambitions graduating me from a pair of AR-3 speakers to the Fulton J's recommended by The Stereophile's J. Gordon Holt. In the early Seventies, I began writing for a number of audio magazines, including Audio Excellence, Audio Forum, The Boston Audio Society Speaker, The American Record Guide, and from 1976 until 2008, The $ensible Sound, for which I served as Classical Music Editor.

Today, I'm retired from teaching and use a pair of bi-amped VMPS RM40s loudspeakers for my listening. In addition to writing for the Classical Candor blog, I served as the Movie Review Editor for the Web site Movie Metropolis (formerly DVDTown) from 1997-2013. Music and movies. Life couldn't be better.

Karl Nehring, Editor and Contributor

For more than 20 years I was the editor of The $ensible Sound magazine and a regular contributor to both its equipment and recordings review pages. I would not presume to present myself as some sort of expert on music, but I have a deep love for and appreciation of many types of music, "classical" especially, and have listened to thousands of recordings over the years, many of which still line the walls of my listening room (and occasionally spill onto the furniture and floor, much to the chagrin of my long-suffering wife). I have always taken the approach as a reviewer that what I am trying to do is simply to point out to readers that I have come across a recording that I have found of interest, a recording that I think they might appreciate my having pointed out to them. I suppose that sounds a bit simple-minded, but I know I appreciate reading reviews by others that do the same for me — point out recordings that they think I might enjoy.

For readers who might be wondering about what kind of system I am using to do my listening, I should probably point out that I do a LOT of music listening and employ a variety of means to do so in a variety of environments, as I would imagine many music lovers also do. Starting at the more grandiose end of the scale, the system in which I do my most serious listening comprises Marantz CD 6007 and Onkyo CD 7030 CD players, NAD C 658 streaming preamp/DAC, Legacy Audio PowerBloc2 amplifier, and a pair of Legacy Audio Focus SE loudspeakers. I occasionally do some listening through pair of Sennheiser 560S headphones. I miss the excellent ELS Studio sound system in our 2016 Acura RDX (now my wife's daily driver) on which I had ripped more than a hundred favorite CDs to the hard drive, so now when driving my 2022 Accord EX-L Hybrid I stream music from my phone through its adequate but not outstanding factory system. For more casual listening at home when I am not in my listening room, I often stream music through the phone into a Vizio soundbar system that has tolerably nice sound for such a diminutive physical presence. And finally, at the least grandiose end of the scale, I have an Ultimate Ears Wonderboom II Bluetooth speaker for those occasions where I am somewhere by myself without a sound system but in desperate need of a musical fix. I just can’t imagine life without music and I am humbly grateful for the technology that enables us to enjoy it in so many wonderful ways.

William (Bill) Heck, Webmaster and Contributor

Among my early childhood memories are those of listening to my mother playing records (some even 78 rpm ones!) of both classical music and jazz tunes. I suppose that her love of music was transmitted genetically, and my interest was sustained by years of playing in rock bands – until I realized that this was no way to make a living. The interest in classical music was rekindled in grad school when the university FM station serving as background music for studying happened to play the Brahms First Symphony. As the work came to an end, it struck me forcibly that this was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard, and from that point on, I never looked back. This revelation was to the detriment of my studies, as I subsequently spent way too much time simply listening, but music has remained a significant part of my life. These days, although I still can tell a trumpet from a bassoon and a quarter note from a treble clef, I have to admit that I remain a nonexpert. But I do love music in general and classical music in particular, and I enjoy sharing both information and opinions about it.

The audiophile bug bit about the same time that I returned to classical music. I’ve gone through plenty of equipment, brands from Audio Research to Yamaha, and the best of it has opened new audio insights. Along the way, I reviewed components, and occasionally recordings, for The $ensible Sound magazine. Most recently I’ve moved to my “ultimate system” consisting of a BlueSound Node streamer, an ancient Toshiba multi-format disk player serving as a CD transport, Legacy Wavelet II DAC/preamp/crossover, dual Legacy PowerBloc2 amps, and Legacy Signature SE speakers (biamped), all connected with decently made, no-frills cables. With the arrival of CD and higher resolution streaming, that is now the source for most of my listening.

Ryan Ross, Contributor

I started listening to and studying classical music in earnest nearly three decades ago. This interest grew naturally out of my training as a pianist. I am now a musicologist by profession, specializing in British and other symphonic music of the 19th and 20th centuries. My scholarly work has been published in major music journals, as well as in other outlets. Current research focuses include twentieth-century symphonic historiography, and the music of Jean Sibelius, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Malcolm Arnold.

I am honored to contribute writings to Classical Candor. In an age where the classical recording industry is being subjected to such profound pressures and changes, it is more important than ever for those of us steeped in this cultural tradition to continue to foster its love and exposure. I hope that my readers can find value, no matter how modest, in what I offer here.


Bryan Geyer, Technical Analyst

I initially embraced classical music in 1954 when I mistuned my car radio and heard the Heifetz recording of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto. That inspired me to board the new "hi-fi" DIY bandwagon. In 1957 I joined one of the pioneer semiconductor makers and spent the next 32 years marketing transistors and microcircuits to military contractors. Home audio DIY projects remained a personal passion until 1989 when we created our own new photography equipment company. I later (2012) revived my interest in two channel audio when we "downsized" our life and determined that mini-monitors + paired subwoofers were a great way to mate fine music with the space constraints of condo living.

Visitors that view my technical papers on this site may wonder why they appear here, rather than on a site that features audio equipment reviews. My reason is that I tried the latter, and prefer to publish for people who actually want to listen to music; not to equipment. My focus is in describing what's technically beneficial to assure that the sound of the system will accurately replicate the source input signal (i. e. exhibit high accuracy) without inordinate cost and complexity. Conversely, most of the audiophiles of today strive to achieve sound that's euphonic, i.e. be personally satisfying. In essence, audiophiles seek sound that's consistent with their desire; the music is simply a test signal.

Mission Statement

It is the goal of Classical Candor to promote the enjoyment of classical music. Other forms of music come and go--minuets, waltzes, ragtime, blues, jazz, bebop, country-western, rock-'n'-roll, heavy metal, rap, and the rest--but classical music has been around for hundreds of years and will continue to be around for hundreds more. It's no accident that every major city in the world has one or more symphony orchestras.

When I was young, I heard it said that only intellectuals could appreciate classical music, that it required dedicated concentration to appreciate. Nonsense. I'm no intellectual, and I've always loved classical music. Anyone who's ever seen and enjoyed Disney's Fantasia or a Looney Tunes cartoon playing Rossini's William Tell Overture or Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 can attest to the power and joy of classical music, and that's just about everybody.

So, if Classical Candor can expand one's awareness of classical music and bring more joy to one's life, more power to it. It's done its job. --John J. Puccio

Contact Information

Readers with polite, courteous, helpful letters may send them to classicalcandor@gmail.com

Readers with impolite, discourteous, bitchy, whining, complaining, nasty, mean-spirited, unhelpful letters may send them to classicalcandor@recycle.bin.

"Their Master's Voice" by Michael Sowa

"Their Master's Voice" by Michael Sowa