Along with César Franck’s nearly contemporaneous Symphony in D minor, Camille Saint-Saëns’s Symphony No. 3 in C minor (‘Organ’) represents one of the pillars of the late nineteenth-century French symphonic repertoire. Composed in 1885–86 at the behest of the Royal Philharmonic Society of London, Saint-Saëns imbued the work with structural, harmonic and timbral innovations that he felt ‘renewed’ symphonic form.Footnote ¹ He compressed the four movements into two continuous divisions (I–II, III–IV) – a procedure previously employed in his Fourth Piano Concerto and First Violin Sonata – and laid them out following the unorthodox Neapolitan tonal trajectory of C minor, D-flat major, C minor and C major. Contending that ‘symphonic works should now be allowed to benefit by the progress of modern instrumentation’, his orchestra included valved and natural horns, valved and natural trumpets and piano (assuming the role of the harp) as well as the organ.Footnote ² Finally, and most importantly, he unified the symphony with four themes subjected to thematic transformation in the manner of his friend and dedicatee Franz Liszt, who had also included the organ in the orchestra for his symphonic poem Hunnenschlacht as well as the Dante Symphony; many analysts accordingly described the ‘Organ’ Symphony as a synthesis of symphony and symphonic poem.Footnote ³ The premiere in May 1886 went over well with the audience (less so the critics), and its first Parisian performance the next year was even more successful. Saint-Saëns believed that the Third Symphony represented his creative apex in the genre and never wrote another.

Despite logistical challenges raised by the presence of the organ, Saint-Saëns’s symphony has received many recordings. The three under consideration in this review appeared in the first eight months of 2015: the Malmö Symphony Orchestra (Sweden) with French conductor Marc Sustrot, the Kansas City Symphony with Michael Stern and the Orchestre National de Lyon with Leonard Slatkin. Curiously, the first and third recordings – with a French conductor and French orchestra respectively – are on Naxos, thereby placing the label in direct competition with itself; Malmö belongs to a complete cycle of Saint-Saëns’s symphonies, while Lyon commemorates a special occasion. The three performances run within 90 seconds of each other, from 35:27 for Kansas City to 36:50 for Malmö.

Some things to listen for when evaluating recordings of the ‘Organ’ Symphony include a performance’s sense of logical inevitability as the thematic transformations propel the work from its dark opening to its triumphant culmination, sensitivity to the balance Saint-Saëns strikes between drama and lyricism, and attention to his skilful orchestration and subtle interpretive nuances – for example, clearly making distinctions between the varied articulations in the semiquaver passages in the strings, which move by turns in tremolos, staccatos and tied notes. Finally, the organ: what type of instrument do we hear – pipe, electronic or virtual – and is it present with the orchestra or recorded separately and superimposed in the editing process?Footnote ⁴

The performance from Malmö belongs to vol. 2 of a complete set of Saint-Saëns’s five symphonies; as such, its only direct competitor is Jean Martinon’s 1975 collection on EMI, though Naxos includes the symphonic poems as well. (In addition to the three numbered symphonies, Saint-Saëns created two works not published until 1974: a Symphony in A major written at age 15 and a large-scale Symphony in F major, subtitled ‘Urbs Roma’, written between the First and Second Symphonies. Jean-Jacques Kantorow recorded the first four symphonies with the Tapiola Sinfonietta for BIS but not the ‘Organ’ Symphony). This instalment of the Naxos set pairs the ‘Organ’ Symphony with the youthful Symphony in A major and Le Rouet d’Omphale. The performance is most notable for its clear textures and articulations, as well as the lyrical warmth of the slow movement. At the same time, Soustrot understates the drama – the admirable crispness comes at the expense of drive – resulting in a well-executed but somewhat bland performance. The recessed sound in the second half reinforces this impression, as the tympani and piano are too subdued in the Scherzo, as is the organ in transitional passages of the finale. Carl Adam Landström plays a console with software designed to reproduce the sound of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll’s organ at the Saint-Étienne Abbey in Caen, France; despite the appeal to the distinctive French ‘symphonic organ’ – one in fact built the same year Saint-Saëns wrote the symphony – the artificial sound is conspicuous at times, for example in the chord stream that concludes the second movement.

Kansas City pairs the Symphony with two concertante works – one very familiar (Introduction and Rondo capriccioso) and the other much less so (La Muse et le poète) – which showcase the orchestra’s concertmaster and principal cellist. Jan Kraybill plays the Julia Irene Kauffman Casavant Organ located in the orchestra’s home venue, Helzberg Hall at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. The performance of the symphony admirably highlights its dynamics and articulations, although the opening movement could use more energy and the Adagio more glow. The second half is more successful, finding the drama lacking in the first, and the recorded sound is superior to that of Malmö. The second trio of the Scherzo and transition into the majestic Finale sustain tension and momentum most effectively, and the chorale transformations in the finale are also notable, especially the beautiful ‘celestial’ passage with its rippling four-hand piano writing. Although as a whole more ‘correct’ than compelling, this performance provides a viable option as well as a good demonstration of the concert hall’s resources.

The second Naxos recording, from Lyon, offers the most intriguing performance, in no small part because of the organ featured. As opposed to Malmö’s imitation Cavaillé-Coll, Vincent Warnier plays the actual instrument Cavaillé-Coll built for the Palais du Trocadéro in Paris in 1878 (with 82 stops and 6500 pipes); relocated to the Auditorium in Lyon in 1977, it was fully restored in 2013, and this performance marks its inauguration. Special circumstances aside, this performance ranks as the best of the three. The clear recording highlights the variegated orchestration; Slatkin captures well the mystery of the second movement, imparting an intimacy in which the organ-like sounds of the orchestra blend well with the real thing; and the forward drive of the Finale is admirable, even if not matching that of the best recordings. The pairings are equally suited to the occasion. Cyprès et lauriers (1919) is a very late war-inspired work for organ and orchestra, which Saint-Saëns conceived specifically for the Trocadéro organ (he conducted its French premiere in that hall in 1920); and Vincent Warnier plays Edwin Lemare’s 1919 transcription of the Danse macabre, adapted by the organist to take advantage of the distinctive stops and registers of this instrument.

The ‘Organ’ Symphony has had a fortunate recording history, and the consumer has a healthy number of fine performances from which to choose. Some of the most highly regarded include those by Marcel Dupré and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra under Paul Paray (Mercury Living Presence, 1957), Berj Zamkochian and the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Charles Munch (RCA Victor, 1959), Peter Hurford with the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal and Charles Dutoit (Decca, 1982), Simon Preston and the Berlin Philharmonic under James Levine (Deutsche Grammophon, 1987) and most recently, Olivier Latry and the Philadelphia Orchestra with Christoph Eschenbach (Ondine, 2007). While in my view none of the three recordings under review rise to their level, each has something to offer: the precision of Malmö, the momentum of Kansas City and the colour and vividness of Lyon. The latter stands as the most significant in terms of performance quality and historical value, featuring an organ for which Saint-Saëns wrote. Final choice may lie with the companion items on each disc, for each presents rare and significant material, especially the little-recorded Symphony in A major with Malmö and Cyprès et lauriers with Lyon.