Odelette for Flute and Orchestra, Op. 162

Composer: SAINT-SAËNS, Camille
  • Saint-Saëns composed this piece in 1920, the year before he died.1
  • An “odelette” (“little song” or “little ode”) is a poetry form.2
    • It looks like this term first appeared in the title of a “little ode” by Pierre de Ronsard in 1555.3
    • The poet Henri de Régnier, a contemporary of Saint-Saëns, wrote many odelettes, and his work was very popular in France in the early 20th C.4
    • By calling his piece an odelette, Saint-Saëns is drawing a parallel between music and literature (Romantic composers loved making musical versions of literary forms: for example, the “symphonic poem,” a term invented by Liszt).5
    • By naming his work after a verse-form from the Renaissance, Saint-Saëns is also giving this piece an evocation of the past.6

Sources

  1.  Horst A. Scholz, liner notes to Aperitif: A French Collection, Sharon Bezaly, Tapiola Sinfonietta, Jean-Jacques Kantorow, BIS 1359, CD, 2002. 
  2. “odelet, n.”, OED Online (Oxford University Press: December 2019), accessed January 14, 2020, https://proxy.multcolib.org:2682/view/Entry/130421?redirectedFrom=odelet. 
  3. Ibid.
  4.  Amy Lowell, Six French Poets: Studies in Contemporary Literature(New York: MacMillan, 1915), 184.
  5. Hugh Macdonald, “Symphonic poem,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed January 15, 2020,  https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000027250. 
  6. Horst A. Scholz, liner notes to Aperitif: A French Collection, Sharon Bezaly, Tapiola Sinfonietta, Jean-Jacques Kantorow, BIS 1359, CD, 2002.

Cut IDs

41837