Symphony no. 3 in C minor op. 78

“I gave it everything I had... what I did then, I will not do again.” With these words he attributed to Saint-Saëns, Jean Bonnerot (1882–1964), his private secretary, reflected the composer’s feeling that he had reached the “peak of his œuvre” with his Third Symphony. Composed in early 1886 along with another one of his masterpieces, Le Carnaval des animaux (The Carnival of Animals), Symphony No. 3 was premiered at London’s St. James’s Hall on 19 May 1886, during the fifth concert of the Royal Philharmonic Society’s season. Returning to the symphonic genre after twenty-six years, Saint-Saëns was responding to a commission from Francesco Berger (1834–1933), the honorary secretary of the London society, to “compose some symphonic work especially for the next season”. The May 1886 concert was conducted by Sir Arthur Sullivan, but Saint-Saëns himself conducted his Symphony after having appeared at the piano in Beethoven’s Concerto No. 4 in G major, op. 58. Written for instrumental forces distinguished by the introduction of a four-handed piano and especially the organ, Symphony No. 3 is also characterized by its paired movements: the Adagio is linked to the Allegro, and the Finale to the Scherzo. A main theme runs through the work that, according to commentators, was inspired by the Gregorian melody of the Dies iræ, and that Saint-Saëns himself described as marked by “a dark and restless feeling”. The score was published by Durand in November 1886, accompanied by a posthumous dedication to Franz Liszt, who had died at the end of July.  A critical edition of Symphony No. 3 was recently published by Bärenreiter in its collection of Saint-Saëns’s “Complete Instrumental Works”; this note is based on Michael Stegemann’s preface to the edition.