Therapist: Saint-Saëns is dead. He can’t hurt you. Saint-Saëns:

I'm thinking Saint-Saëns got a deal on black ink. lol

These are suddenly much scarier than chopin's

Duchable is the cleanest pianist alive he never miss a note thats unheard of.

These etudes are SO underrated.

That No. 2 is super cool, that's damn tough to isolate notes in big chords like that. This is a probably an effective etude.

Number 2 is brilliant. Being able to voice notes like that is what separates true pianists from simple keyboard players

1 - Prélude - 0:00 2 - Pour l' indépendance des doigts - 2:10 3 - Prélude et fugue en Fa mineur - 4:38 6:40 4 - Étude de rythme - 8:18 5 - Prélude et fugue en La majeur - 10:42 12:43 6 - En forme de valse - 16:35

I love how Rene Duchable doesn’t get a NOTE wrong. The Etudes just sound astonishing. Good for listening while suffering from enteritis, it just heals the mind and makes me calm, especially the fugues.

Well well...another work I have never heard before, and I am age 71. Thank you for uploading this treat :)

OMG No 4 with the simultaneous triple and duple time - how can anyone play that so effortlessly?

Stunning Etudes -. especially 1, 2 and 6. Ultramodern and super heavy.

the triplet one was amazing.

...and sometimes I experience a seemingly undeniable and extraordinarily clear thought that Camille Saint Saens was the most talented human being who ever lived...

In all the years (75) that I have been listening to "classical" piano I have never heard these etudes before and I am absolutely astounded. I thought I knew most is SSs music but I have just discovered these 6. How any pianist could play them like this does not seem humanly possible. I followed the scores and I felt absolutely exhausted and I was only reading!! Some of you seem to know them fairly well, I hope to say that, eventually I will. He used to say that melodies came to him like apples falling from the trees. He certainly had bumper harvests!

Just when I think Ive determined the style of saint saens, I find a whole new feeling in his music. So much content, so much variety under one composer. I found him first in danse macabre, them his carnival of the animals... I recommend saens 3 fugues... the themes are more clearly defined than even bach. Defenitely an underrated composer.

WOW!!!! Saint-Saëns is underrated as hell!!!!

Out of fricking nowhere : a fugue.

No one: Saint-Saëns: (writing first etude) *I LIKE DEMISEMIQUAVERS*

that second piece is genius, melody accent notes within chords, but this is a little more challenging. Instead of accenting the melody high note, your doing all with the chord almost. I've never seen or hard a piece quite like it.

Spectacular technique. Truly. Also, Saint Saëns was a genius. Every one of these is incredibly challenging in a very different way.

I've never seen and heard anything like #2. That must be very difficult, but very useful. I try to do that with simple chords, voicing from note to note within the chords, as part of my warm-ups for dynamic touch, which are just as important as other kinds of warm-up.

Kudos the the pianist! He really nailed these beasts of etudes! Highly underrated compositions and virtuosity!

The polyrhythm etude was super cool. Interesting he wrote out the same rhythm different ways.

Camille Saint-Saens had an extraordinary gift to write music that gives you goosebumps.

His music is sooo wonderful!

Camille Saint Saëns wrote some beautifully music. Truly a master composer.

My hands and forearms hurt just watching and imagining playing this. I love it.

Stellar pianist

they were all good.the fugue one after shows his musical genius

Numbers 2 and 3 are some of the most impressive etudes I have ever heard. The F Minor fugue is especially awesome, makes me think of a mini experience of what the Hammerklavier offers (not exactly the same, but you know what I mean)! Thank you for posting this :)

Blimey, just looking at the first page of the first etude made my fingers ache. The only one I knew at all was the Valse, which I remember seeing Cecile Ousset play on the tv. She romped through it, making it look and sound like the easiest thing in the world. Both she and M Duchable show us that French piano playing has definitely something going for it, even if it's worlds away from the mighty Russians. As the world continues to shrink and students cross continents during their studies, national schools will continue to die out and we will be left with homogenisaton, where everyone sounds the same. It has already happened, pretty much, with singing. Diversity may be bad for marketing but it certainly makes the world a more interesting place. Thank you so much for sharing.

5:04 - 5:15 Chopin etude op 25 no 12

This was the incredible technical standard at the Paris Conservatory. Anyone who could make this blizzard of notes sound like music was truly a “finished musician.”

After nearly 30 years of selling classical print music nobody has ever ordered a copy of this!! It's absurdly difficult in places - and so enjoyable to the ears.

The entire thing is like “I bought the whole Piano, I’m gonna use the whole piano”

Wonderful. I'm really astonished. I'll add thus to the list of pieces I will never ever try to play or read through.

i was finding hard piano pieces to learn then this came up and i thought maybe i could but that double note part made me change my mind

Absolutely fantastic! He's among the greatest artists ever. A genius.

Thank you for posting the excellent performances of the Saint-Saens Etudes Op. 52- each is a wonderful gem!

Very worthwhile listening to this set of etudes. Love how this channel provides the scores. I was especially impressed by the fuges. IMO the fuge is the highest form of musical science. To be able to compose a fuge and make it beautiful and enjoyable to listen to is a rare gift achieved by precious few high musical artists. Saint Saens is such an artist.

The fugue in A was so beautiful!! Thank you for posting :)

I would have loved him as my piano and composition teacher. What a wizard!

Such graceful, effortless playing! Impressive!

I seem to remember reading a long time ago (Lives of the Great Pianists or Composers, maybe) that at the age of 14 Saint-Saens would give piano recitals where he would offer to play from memory any of Beethoven's 32 piano sonatas. Very impressive child prodigy.

Excellent performence!!!!

Thank you for posting this. What a great performance of pieces completely unfamiliar to me. You found real treasures here!

Incredible performance and studies!!

Superb interpretation !!! Thank you so much for sharing...

Excellent, good job! And thank you very much!

here is another epic career that I have never even heard a whisper of before, and this guy was epic in his time. anyway

These are incredible!

Maravilloso. Este compositor es un superdotado, todo lo que conozco de él es virtuosismo y lirismo extremo.

Waw, the Waltz étude totally astonished me, never heard such an atypical and brilliant one D: I don't listen pretty much Saint Saëns, but these Études are just amazing

All respect to classical pianists. Wow.

spaventosamente complesso complimenti

Thank you, Bartje Bartmans. Dummy me had no idea Saint-Saens wrote etudes.

Imagine trying to play 2:11 and not being able to span a 10th...

Hated the waltz at first... now I think it's completely magnificent!

Very delightful and diverting.

Wow, this pianist is the real deal!

Honestly, these just look diabolical. I am totally downloading the sheet music so that I can torture myself with them.

Wow... This piano melody is very perfect and I will play this melody... It's so hard...

......and STILL Great......Thanks from Acapulco!

this is so awesome

Okay but at 20:06 how the hell does he play those thirds that fast? Damn!!

I read someplace that S-S played with a dry as toast pre-Lisztian kind of finger technique and that his playing, while faultlessly perfect gave the impression of an exploding mechanical music box. I think that's an hysterical description, as in funny hysterical.

My hands hurt just from looking at No. 3. This is insanity! And it sounds marvellous! I'd say that if you can play these adequately, you don't need to play Études any longer.

Very interesting!

No. 6 - absolute meisterstück!

Magnifique Duchable ,Saint Saens.

Maravilloso

the fuge is amazing

I don't think I've ever seen alternating 2 against 3 in the left hand alone....wow...0_o!

technically clever and musically interesting compositions. excellent performance

Beautifully played. Even the 1st one is hard😔

16:37 The walse Ysaye took inspiration from to write this piece!!: Ysaye - Caprice d'apres l'Etude en forme de Valse de Saint-Saens Both brilliant!

Wow...difficult stuff. Nice recording

Formidable!

The second etude is insane in a lot of sense.

Real genius!

Handy , key. Nice. Play .. metre can mean technique .. lots of practices to do .. Well done.. shame these recitals are not pop anymore xo

If you know them very well, there are brief subtle allusions to Chopin Etudes in Saint-Saens No. 3 here: at 5:09 (Chopin Op. 10, No. 12) and at 5:24-5:35 (Chopin Op. 25, No. 1). There are other pieces where sneaky S.-S. did such things ...

interesting to play!!!

favourite piece is the f minor fugue at 6:40

quelle technique !!!

The theme in the A major fugue was maybe inspired by Bach's C major in WTC II? Parts of the inner voices sound similar, too.

Thanks for posting. The performer is achieving miracles, and if he doesn't always produce what the composer demands I wonder if that isn't because what the composer demands is not really possible: the pianissimos in the prelude to no. 5 for example, and the exact internal voicing demanded in no. 2. Maybe this performance is as close as anyone can get. I can't find a recording by Marc André Hamelin anywhere: if the composer's demands were realisable surely MAH would have recorded these pieces by now? Of course, he may also think that not all of them are musically interesting enough, particularly nos. 3, 4 and 5.

なんていい曲なんだ！クラッシックの名曲も聴き漁ったな〜なんて慢心した時に初めて聞いてショックを受ける曲はいつもサン=サーンスだ。

Boy, you sure do get your two against three’s worth in Étude No. 4!

The third one reminds me a lot of Chopin's Ocean Etude.

Wow. These look surprisingly difficult!

6. En forme de valse (16:36)

Given the more recent "discovery" of non-Liszt/Chopin romantic piano virtuosity, Saint-Saens is definitely due some attention. Personally I find his stuff much nicer to listen to than Alkan, who's all the rage at the moment.

Wow I didn't realise Saint-Saens could write such excellent counterpoint

massive!

Does anyone know the process used by Rene Duchable to record these etudes? I mean, did he walk into the studio and just play them all and walk out with a finished master? Did he spend a week of takes on each one? Or did he play them into a Yamaha Disklavier (or any other reproducing piano) and edit them? The technology has existed to make perfect recordings like this since the early 1990s, if not before. That’s about when the Disklavier emerged. Previous player pianos suffered extreme disadvantages and were not capable of such perfection. I mean no disrespect to Duchable. If he was able to play these easily in the studio, he’s certainly a monster pianist. Some great pianists who could play near-perfect recitals could probably get these on tape (or into a computer file) in a few takes. Horowitz probably could have easily played them, but there would be many errors. He was just so good that you didn’t care about errors, as are many others, but when I hear a literally note-perfect recording of music this difficult without the payout of a Rachmaninoff concerto, I always wonder if it was done at a Disklavier. (Or similar) However it was done, it’s great. But if Duchable recorded these in one take, I take off my hat out of respect for his prowess.

@8:18 What am I missing here between the recording and the printed page with the Introduction?

❤❤❤

anyone know what kind of piano is being played?