Souvenir d’Ismaïlia op. 100

At the end of the 19th century, the enthusiasm for all things Egyptian was fuelled by the discoveries made by archaeologists and by the “Egyptian caravan”, composed of one hundred and twenty-three people, which was shown at the Jardin d’acclimatation in Paris in 1891. Saint-Saëns actually had first-hand experience of this country, which he also discovered in 1891 and where he stayed on several occasions. In 1895, he was in Ismailia, a town on the bank of the Suez canal in north-western Egypt. This was where he composed Souvenir d’Ismaïlia, dedicated to Isidore Philipp who gave its first performance on 27 April 1895 as part of a concert put on by La Trompette (a chamber music society which Saint-Saëns actively supported). This piano work makes little use of local colour (Ismailia, in fact, was only founded in 1863, during the construction of the Suez canal, as its administrative centre). With the exception of the threnody in the first few lines and several subtle modal touches in the Andantino, this is actually a brilliant showpiece whose second section, Allegro vivo, is increasingly virtuosic in character. Saint-Saëns programmed it regularly in his concerts (in fact, he played it in front of the queen of Spain in 1897), because each time it was received with rapturous applause. In his letter to Durand of 19 February 1895, he nevertheless had this warning for performers only interested in spectacular effects: “As for the Souvenir d’Ismaïlia, please be so kind as to ask the ‘Carnivores’ not to play the second part too fast; I have nothing to tell the ‘Herbivores’ who will adopt the correct tempo as a matter of course.”