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Saint-saëns Piano Concertos 1-5;

December 12, 2011 by Kolby Jenkins

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Playing Piano to an Audience

Whether you are a professional pianist or just beginning to learn the basi principles of piano playing, knowing how to prepare for a performance is essential. If you are an experienced musician, you have probably already worked out procedures that work well for you, but if you are new to playing in front of other people, here are galore tips that will help you tackle this beauteous stressful situation.

1. Choose your pieces well

First of all, choose your best pieces for your performances: the ones you love to play and the ones you have practised the most. In your daily work at the piano, you will have to most times try to work on things that you find almost too challenging, both technically and musically, just to keep widening your horizon – but this is not a time for that kind of stuff. Use the occasion to showcase your strengths. Also, if you are going to play more than one piece, put them in an order that is comfortable for you and that makes sense to your audience. For example, commence with something that you feel in truth convinced in regards to and that will get the audience in the right mood to listen to you.

2. Dry run your performance

Don’t carry out pieces that you haven’t played from begin to finish various times to yourself. If you are going to do various pieces, undertake playing the whole performance to yourself, your teacher or a friend. You will find that this is a rather dissimilar thing from playing one piece at a time or portion of one piece. Perhaps you will even be rather disappointed and disheartened. But don’t give up, it will be a lot better the next time!

3. Picture your performance

Think when it comes to what is going to occur on stage, in as much detail as possible. How you are going to walk up to the piano, look at the audience, take a bow, sit down, et cetera. Most importantly, think when it comes to your performance as a successful, positive event. Picture yourself sentiment convinced on stage; picture your fingers knowing what they are doing; picture the applause and the happy face of the audience.

4. Love your audience

Remember that audiences are never your enemies. They are your friends; they want you to succeed. Why wouldn’t they – they are there hoping to listen to a good deal of nice music! Try to connect with your audience and respond to their expectations. Smile at one or two people before you sit down to play – it will make all of you more comfortable. You in all likelihood recognise some of the persons out there – it might help you stay focalized if you mentally pick out one of them and play as if that was the only person listening.

5. Stay focalized on what’s happening right now

There will be galore surprises for the duration of your performance. Some of them will be bad and numerous will be good. Which outweighs the other depends on how you are competent to stay tuned to the music. If something doesn’t comes out as you wanted it to, forget with regards to it quickly and concentrate to a complete degree on the bit you’re doing right now. If you’re approaching what you know is a tricky spot, don’t worry when it comes to it in advance; again, focus on one thing at a time, taking everything in your stride, trusting your fingers to recognise what they’re doing. If you manage to do this, the aweinspiring thing that will take place is that you will play better than ever. Suddenly you will see the point of all those hours in your practise room!


There is a lot of actually pleasurable music here. I do not forget organizing a performance of the Fifth Piano Concerto (subtitled “The Egyptian”) when I was repertoire committee chairman for a local community orchestra. We found it not only very playable for all of us amateurs in the orchestra, but it plainly blew the audience away. It’s a real find. Both the Second and Fourth concertos have been standard favorites for more than a century, but they seemed to have vanished sight in the past couple of decades. It was our loss, but no more. And the Fifth Piano Concerto, even when played by amateurs, may blow an audience away. At two discs for the price of one, these fine performances offer listeners a outstanding chance to know this charming and vivacious music at little or no danger at all. So why hesitate? –David Hurwitz

Saint Sans Piano Concertos 1 5

Saint Sans Piano Concertos 1 5 Picture

Saint Sans Piano Concertos 1 5

Saint Sans Piano Concertos 1 5 Image

Saint Sans Piano Concertos 1 5

Saint Sans Piano Concertos 1 5 Image

Saint Sans Piano Concertos 1 5

Saint Sans Piano Concertos 1 5 Image

Saint Sans Piano Concertos 1 5

Saint Sans Piano Concertos 1 5 Image

Saint Sans Piano Concertos 1 5

Saint Sans Piano Concertos 1 5 Image


Most helpful customer reviews

55 of 56 people found the following review helpful.
5Trust us
By Niall
Looking at the other reviews here, I can only nod in complete agreement. Saint-Saëns is an underrated composer and these 5 concertos are joyful, seductive and deserving of a lot more attention than they have received. Saint-Saëns, like Mendelssohn, had the ability to instantly inspire happiness in the listener, this listener anyhow. Yes, the 2nd and 4th occasionally do get an airing, but the “Eqyptian” (the 5th) is every bit their equal and the remaining two concertos certainly have their own merits. The five deserve a double disc outing like this.

The performances here are very, very fine indeed. I have not heard the Collard/Previn versions (which are referred to in another review), although I have several versions of the 2nd and 4th. Charles Dutoit and Pascal Roge do a wonderful job, investing these performances with the affection and conviction they deserve. True, there is more of the virtuoso than the philosopher about Roge’s playing, but that is entirely appropriate to Saint-Saëns. This is feel-good music (and music-making) of the very highest callibre.

Returning to these discs is always a pleasure for me and I hope will be for you. If you have even a passing interest in late Romantic piano concertos treat yourself to these.

34 of 36 people found the following review helpful.
5Listen to Collard and Previn also
By A
I put the Roge/Dutoit up against the Collard/Previn/RPO with headphones and preferred the latter. Both sets are very nice, but the Collard has more depth, character and detail especially with headphones. The Collard is lighter and more elegant with the delicate passages sounding more delicate, while the Roge is louder and more forceful. The piano seems cleaner and more up front with the digital recording of Collard as compared to the analog recording of Roge.

41 of 46 people found the following review helpful.
5Sparkling, and no reservations!
By Michael Newberry
If lovely melodies, crystal-clear sound, wonderful pacing do not interest you…then, do not buy these CDs, otherwise, go for it. Charles Dutoit does it again, he brings freshness, intelligence, drive, and, above all, incredible sound to this music. This is my first listening experience with Pascal Roge, he plays with deftness, charm, and, I think, with an appropreiate amount of romanticism. I had not heard four of the Concertos, and it is exciting to discover something new and unexpected.

One of my favorite recordings!

See all 23 customer reviews…


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