Some of you may know that aside from my love of all things Egyptology, I am also an avid musician, playing piano and viola and singing. Always keen to combine my two main interests, I was especially pleased when a particular concerto was brought to my attention a few years ago – Camille Saint-Sa\u00ebns\u2019 Piano Concerto No.5 in F major, also known as \u2018The Egyptian\u2019. Saint-Sa\u00ebns (1835-1921) \u2013 known for \u2018The Carnival of the Animals\u2019 and the \u2018Organ\u2019 Symphony, the main theme of which appears in the film Babe<\/i> \u2013 was very well-travelled and spent much time in North Africa; \u2018The Egyptian\u2019 was in fact composed in Luxor in winter 1895-6.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I will not get into the technical details of the work, but the composer himself referred to it as a \u2018journey to the east, and even, in the F sharp passage, to the Far East\u2019 and musical features over its three movements imitate the croaking of Nile frogs, a \u2018Nubian love song\u2019 and the turning of a ship\u2019s propellers. Most notably, the slow(ish) second movement evokes the hot sun, sand and flowing Nile, and has a particularly Middle\/Far Eastern feel in the mysterious, transparent harmonies and exotic piano scales. I have just downloaded the sheet music, though I do not expect to make huge progress as I am certainly not a virtuosic concert pianist! The recording I have and would recommend is Steven Hough with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sakari Oramo, but several other versions can be found on the internet \u2013 this one is quite good: http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=1IEYtta_ZsI<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/a>. 1st<\/sup> mov. 0:00; 2nd<\/sup> mov. 9:54; 3rd<\/sup> mov. 20:35.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Some of you may know that aside from my love of all things Egyptology, I am also an avid musician, playing piano and viola and singing. Always keen to combine my two main interests, I was especially pleased when a particular concerto was brought to my attention a few years ago – Camille Saint-Sa\u00ebns\u2019 Piano … <\/p>\n Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1710,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[38,42,43,64,74],"class_list":["post-1272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-concerto","tag-egyptian-music","tag-egyptianizing","tag-piano","tag-saint-saens","no-featured-image-padding"],"featured_image_urls_v2":{"full":"","thumbnail":"","medium":"","medium_large":"","large":"","1536x1536":"","2048x2048":"","ab-block-post-grid-landscape":"","ab-block-post-grid-square":"","post-thumbnail":"","chaplin_preview_image_low_resolution":"","chaplin_preview_image_high_resolution":"","chaplin_fullscreen":""},"post_excerpt_stackable_v2":" Some of you may know that aside from my love of all things Egyptology, I am also an avid musician, playing piano and viola and singing. Always keen to combine my two main interests, I was especially pleased when a particular concerto was brought to my attention a few years ago – Camille Saint-Sa\u00ebns\u2019 Piano Concerto No.5 in F major, also known as \u2018The Egyptian\u2019. Saint-Sa\u00ebns (1835-1921) \u2013 known for \u2018The Carnival of the Animals\u2019 and the \u2018Organ\u2019 Symphony, the main theme of which appears in the film Babe \u2013 was very well-travelled and spent much time in North Africa;…<\/p>\n","category_list_v2":"Uncategorized<\/a>","author_info_v2":{"name":"Edward Mushett Cole","url":"https:\/\/more.bham.ac.uk\/birminghamegyptology\/author\/mushetej\/"},"comments_num_v2":"0 comments","featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Edward Mushett Cole","author_link":"https:\/\/more.bham.ac.uk\/birminghamegyptology\/author\/mushetej\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/more.bham.ac.uk\/birminghamegyptology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/more.bham.ac.uk\/birminghamegyptology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/more.bham.ac.uk\/birminghamegyptology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/more.bham.ac.uk\/birminghamegyptology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1710"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/more.bham.ac.uk\/birminghamegyptology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/more.bham.ac.uk\/birminghamegyptology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1272\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/more.bham.ac.uk\/birminghamegyptology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/more.bham.ac.uk\/birminghamegyptology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/more.bham.ac.uk\/birminghamegyptology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}