Transcience, a new piece by the young Estonian composer Elis Hallik, reflects on the fleeting nature of human experience. It presents the moment as an ephemeral yet deeply meaningful phenomenon. The experience of the moment was an integral part of Camille Saint-Saëns’s long journeys. At the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, he often travelled to Egypt, where he sought inspiration in musical archaeology and exoticism. It was there, during one of his trips, that he composed his last Piano Concerto in F major – a work requiring extraordinary virtuosity from the performer. Its sound reflects Saint-Saëns’s fascination with Africa, especially in the second movement, which refers to the songs of Nubian boatmen on the Nile – an 'authentic’ attraction offered to European travellers. It was a journey north to the cool landscapes of Scotland, meanwhile, that resulted in one of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy’s most recognisable works. A visit to Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh – a place, as the composer himself noted, steeped in the memory of the life and love of Queen Mary Stuart – became a source of romantic inspiration for him. He was most impressed by the ruined chapel, overrun by wild vegetation, which he described with almost botanical accuracy. Although the creative impulse came immediately, the result of this trip – the Symphony No. 3 in A minor, known today as the ‘Scottish’ – matured in his imagination for several years before taking its final form, suffused with drama and melancholy.
Bartłomiej Gembicki