Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) entered Parisian musical life as a prodigy, a virtuoso pianist who played a significant role in introducing all five of Beethoven’s piano concerti to skeptical French audiences. He also composed and performed his own cycle of five concerti for the instrument.
Though his output was enormous his best-known compositions date from the 1870s and 1880s, when Saint-Saëns was at the peak of his fame. Along with the first of his two cello concerti, these include the tone poem Danse Macabre, the opera Samson and Delilah, the Third Symphony (the “Organ” Symphony), and Carnival of the Animals.
It was early in this period that Saint-Saëns wrote the Cello Concerto No. 1 for Auguste Tolbecque (1830-1919), the work’s dedicatee and principal cellist of the Paris Conservatory Orchestra. Tolbecque’s premiere of the Cello Concerto with that orchestra on January 19, 1873, marked an important turning point in establishing Saint-Saëns’ reputation as a composer of substance. The work has secured a spot as one of the best-loved of 19th-century concerti.
In sync with the mood at the time, Saint-Saëns sought to unite the movements of the concerto by condensing its three-movement format into an organically compact single movement. In addition Saint-Saëns subtly transformed the role of the soloist from a hero in conflict with the orchestra to a solo protagonist, at times integrated into the orchestral fabric of the work.