1st Symphony Concert

an orchestral "breathing in and out" (Šenk). Camille Saint-Saëns' Piano Concerto No. 5 was composed in 1896 in Luxor, Egypt. The composer himself described the middle movement as "a kind of journey to the Orient." In addition to Arabic melodies recorded several years earlier, it contains "a Nubian love song that I heard boatmen sing on the Nile." Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov also paints pictures of an imaginary Orient in his "Scheherazade" from 1888. ...