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Saint-Saëns's First String Quartet, Cyclic Form and the Aesthetics of Charm
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 June 2019
Abstract
From the 1850s, Saint-Saëns regularly employed cyclic form: the practice of establishing large-scale relationships (especially in symphonies, chamber works, etc.) by reintroducing materials from earlier movements in later ones. Nonetheless, he became weary of such procedures following the Third Symphony (1886) for cultural-political reasons: Franck's most important cyclic works date from the 1880s, d'Indy declared la forme cyclique a historically determined canon, and period writers considered cyclic form a franckiste hallmark – all while Saint-Saëns's relationship with Franck's followers deteriorated.
In this essay, I argue that Saint-Saëns's First String Quartet (1899) ‘misreads’ his rivals’ approaches to cyclic form as exemplified by d'Indy's Second Quartet of 1897 (in which a four-note cell suffuses most themes) and Franck's Quartet (in which themes from previous movements climactically accumulate in the final coda). Saint-Saëns's themes abound with miniscule motivic connections, which catch listeners’ ears but seem too fleeting and insubstantial to register as binding elements comparable to d'Indy's pellucid cell. Such relationships straddle the threshold of apprehensibility, and they produce a distinctive affective quality: where d'Indy fosters perceptions of genetic relationships, Saint-Saëns elicits a sensation of déjà entendu. The final coda similarly teases by reintroducing fragments from the slow introduction, encouraging anticipation of a Franck-like apotheosis. What follows is a mirage of one: timbres and textures of previous movements return, but incipient citations of themes dissolve. Where Franck delivers a full-blooded synthesis, Saint-Saëns follows through with trompe l'oreille.
Saint-Saëns's misreadings of franckiste technique point to broader aesthetic conflicts. D'Indy enlisted cyclic form as a means to monumentality, which served the enseignement he esteemed as art's purpose. Déjà entendu and trompe l'oreille, on the other hand, register as classicising attributes which diverge from d'Indy's didactic objectives and which Saint-Saëns grouped under the rubric of ‘charm’, a conduit to what he considered an ideologically neutral ‘aesthetic sense’.
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References
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41 The Département de la musique, Bibliothèque nationale de France holds both the fair copy (MS891) and the manuscript sent to Durand (MS737). The latter now includes the three pages containing the final presto, marked by Durand with indications to the engraver about how this music was to be soldered to the rest of the finale.
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43 Few letters from Durand to Saint-Saëns in March and April 1899 have come to light, but in one note dated 27 April, the publisher outlined some of the remaining steps in the publication process, emphasizing the timeline: ‘Here is how we will proceed. We will extract each instrument [i.e. the parts] and give them, and the full score, to the engraver. Then we will correct the first proofs; when you return in late July all that will be ready for you to look over. At this point, despite the difficulties of the season (the holidays), we'll try to put this quartet together. Playing through it will probably reveal mistakes, for some always remain. And all that will be ready for the opening of the season in October’. The letter is reproduced in Elizabeth Harkins, ‘The Chamber Music of Camille Saint-Saëns’ (PhD diss., New York University, 1976), 191.
44 Saint-Saëns sent Durand at least eight letters about the quartet between 20 February and 7 April, including four after 30 March, an unusual volume even for this prolific correspondent. All seek to reassure the publisher of the work's immanent delivery, and some seem to make excuses for delays. On 30 March, for instance, he informed Durand he would have already finished the composition had it not been for ‘the damned flu’ and promised its prompt completion; on 4 April he averred that only ‘a few tiny touch-ups’ remained; on 7 April he claimed to have been re-copying the score, a task which should not have taken nine days. The letter of 16 April accompanying the manuscript asserts that while producing the copy he had made ‘numerous changes, work that has proven fruitful’. This final letter exaggerates: comparison of the fair copy to the dispatched manuscript reveals only a handful of superficial alterations.
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