Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges: A Leading Composer of Symphonies Concertantes

[Le Chevalier de Saint-George: The Complete Symphonies Concertantes On 2 CDs; CD2 276018; Avenira (2008)]

A recent AfriClassical post read: “The Complete Symphonies Concertantes of Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges Released”. The composer's eight works in this musical form are now available on Le Chevalier de Saint-George: The Complete Symphonies Concertantes On 2 CDs; CD1 276017 and CD2 276018; Avenira (2008). The CDs are now in stock at numerous music websites, including Amazon.com, ArkivMusic.com and HBDirect.com

The liner notes for both CDs are by Michelle Garnier-Panafieu: “With Giuseppe Maria Cambini and Jean-Baptiste Davaux, Saint-George was among the composers who excelled in the genre that was to survive the Revolution and to persist into the nineteenth century under the title of double concerto or triple concerto (we are, of course, thinking of Beethoven).

Saint-George composed eight symphonies concertantes: two Opus 6, two Opus 9, two Opus 10, one Opus 12 and one Opus 13. They were published between 1775 and 1782, his most productive years as a composer, when he was at the forefront of Parisian musical life as conductor of the Concert des Amateurs, then of the Concert de la Loge Olympique. So it was after acquiring ample experience in the composition of violin concertos — by 1775, when his two Concertos Opus 5 were published, he had already brought out six — that he explored the expressive possibilities of this new hybrid genre, half-way between the symphony and the concerto.”







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