Saint-Saëns -- Piano Concerto No. 5

I wear out my feeble brain trying to decide what to do about Camille Saint-Saëns.

Most serious music critics and listeners sniff, considering him mostly surface, little substance. I understand what they're getting at.

But.....

sometimes, there's no substitute for how it is to float on his music in a glistening ambivalence. A condition of semi-abstracted listening and feeling.





Well...I listened to this some more, while knocking back a couple of beers. And I must revise what I said above. Besides the exemplary musical craft of this concerto, there are also moments of sensitive and genuine expression -- the mellifluous and the melancholy phasing through a portal of equanimity.