David Burchell - Saint-Saëns 'Organ' Symphony

I am looking forward to joining the orchestra in the ‘Organ Symphony’. Despite its title, it is really a full romantic orchestral symphony, with big tunes and thrilling brass fanfares contrasting with many more intimate moments for strings and woodwind. Saint-Saëns uses the organ as an extra sonority within the orchestra, and in fact the organ does not play at all until half-way
through!. And in fact the organ does not play at all until half-way through!.

While the piece is most famous for the fortissimo organ chords at the start of the last movement, what I actually enjoy most is the organ’s role in the lyrical romantic slow movement, in which the organ is first heard very softly, before being joined by the strings; the combined sonority has a richness which cannot be achieved with either strings or organ alone.