Buskaid: Saint-Saëns - Wedding Cake Waltz - Caprice - Valse

Wedding Cake Waltz – Caprice - Valse for piano and strings opus 76
Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921)
PIANO - Melvyn Tan

This performance was filmed at a concert given by the Buskaid Soweto String Ensemble in 2018 at the Linder Auditorium, Johannesburg. Melvyn Tan very generously donated this performance to Buskaid.

“Written in 1885 as a nuptial tribute to pianist Caroline de Serres, Saint-Saëns' Wedding Cake for piano and strings is a slight but charming "caprice-valse" that's just a bit too big for the salon. The piano commences with a few sparkling cascades of notes that turn into a flighty waltz; the strings offer a more expansive, lilting tune, and the first third of this six-minute piece is simply an alternation of these two ideas. In the middle section, the piano misfires in starts and stops through several measures before it finally catches hold with brilliant passagework. The strings smooth things out; more explicitly waltz-like ideas return, and the piano now appropriates with gusto the strings' more developed theme from the first section. At the very end, the piano repeats its solo from the middle section; the piece ends not with fireworks, but with quietly tinkling utterances from the piano and a few almost offhanded pizzicati from the strings.” (courtesy: James Reel)

The Buskaid Music School is situated in Diepkloof Soweto, and offers high quality string tuition to the local, less privileged community. In 2022 Buskaid celebrates its 25th Anniversary.

www.buskaid.org.za