Saint-Saëns’s First String Quartet and the Cultural Politics of Cyclic Form
From the 1850s, Saint-Saëns regularly employed cyclic form: the practice of establishing large-scale relationships (especially in symphonies, chamber works, etc.) by reintroducing materials from earlier movements in later ones. Nonetheless, he became weary of such procedures following the Third Symphony (1886), primarily for cultural-political reasons: Franck’s most important cyclic works date from the 1880s, d’Indy declared la forme cyclique a historically determined canon, and period writers often considered cyclic form a franckiste hallmark—all while Saint-Saëns’s relationship with Franck’s followers deteriorated.
In this paper, I argue that Saint-Saëns’s First String Quartet (1899) parodies his rivals’ approaches to cyclic form as exemplified by d’Indy’s Second Quartet of 1897 (in which a four-note cell suffuses most themes) and Franck’s Quartet (in which themes from previous movements climactically accumulate in the final coda). Saint-Saëns’s themes abound with miniscule motivic connections, which will catch listeners’ ears but which seem too fleeting and insubstantial to register as binding elements in the manner of d’Indy’s pellucid cell. Such relationships seem calculated to straddle the threshold of apprehensibility, and they produce a distinctive affective quality: where d’Indy fosters perceptions of genetic relationships, Saint-Saëns elicits a sensation of déjà entendu. The final coda similarly teases by reintroducing fragments from the slow introduction, encouraging anticipation of a Franck-like apotheosis. What actually follows is a mirage of one: timbres, textures, and rhythms of previous movements return, but incipient citations of themes quickly dissolve. Where Franck delivers a full-blooded synthesis, Saint-Saëns follows through with trompe l’oreille.
Saint-Saëns’s parody of franckiste technique points to broader aesthetic conflicts. D’Indy enlisted cyclic form as a means to monumentality, which could further the enseignement he esteemed as the primary purpose of art. Déjà entendu and trompe l’oreille, on the other hand, register as (neo)classicising attributes which diverge from d’Indy’s didactic objectives and which Saint-Saëns grouped under the rubric of “charm,” a conduit to an ideologically neutral “aesthetic sense.”
From the 1850s, Saint-Saëns regularly employed cyclic form: the practice of establishing large-scale relationships (especially in symphonies, chamber works, etc.) by reintroducing materials from earlier movements in later ones. Nonetheless, he became weary of such procedures following the Third Symphony (1886), primarily for cultural-political reasons: Franck’s most important cyclic works date from the 1880s, d’Indy declared la forme cyclique a historically determined canon, and period writers often considered cyclic form a franckiste hallmark—all while Saint-Saëns’s relationship with Franck’s followers deteriorated.
In this paper, I argue that Saint-Saëns’s First String Quartet (1899) parodies his rivals’ approaches to cyclic form as exemplified by d’Indy’s Second Quartet of 1897 (in which a four-note cell suffuses most themes) and Franck’s Quartet (in which themes from previous movements climactically accumulate in the final coda). Saint-Saëns’s themes abound with miniscule motivic connections, which will catch listeners’ ears but which seem too fleeting and insubstantial to register as binding elements in the manner of d’Indy’s pellucid cell. Such relationships seem calculated to straddle the threshold of apprehensibility, and they produce a distinctive affective quality: where d’Indy fosters perceptions of genetic relationships, Saint-Saëns elicits a sensation of déjà entendu. The final coda similarly teases by reintroducing fragments from the slow introduction, encouraging anticipation of a Franck-like apotheosis. What actually follows is a mirage of one: timbres, textures, and rhythms of previous movements return, but incipient citations of themes quickly dissolve. Where Franck delivers a full-blooded synthesis, Saint-Saëns follows through with trompe l’oreille.
Saint-Saëns’s parody of franckiste technique points to broader aesthetic conflicts. D’Indy enlisted cyclic form as a means to monumentality, which could further the enseignement he esteemed as the primary purpose of art. Déjà entendu and trompe l’oreille, on the other hand, register as (neo)classicising attributes which diverge from d’Indy’s didactic objectives and which Saint-Saëns grouped under the rubric of “charm,” a conduit to an ideologically neutral “aesthetic sense.”