HARMONIA MUNDI HMT7901472 19' 20"

The annals of the History show 1908 as the year of creation of the first musical composition specifically created for the Cinema, L'Assassinat du Duc de Guise, and to the then seventy-years old Camille Saint-Saëns as the author of the music. The French composer were found, in that moment, in the beginning of the end of a long career on which he had demonstrated a special affinity to the approximation to all kind of genders; it does not result, because of this, surprising his positive response to the suggestion effected by the director of the film André Calmettes. Evidently it is not considered a work that emphasize particularly by its musical interest, but by its historical importance; however, Saint-Saëns' music does not result neither much less negligible by himself, showing a curious incidental and dramatic sense that converts it into much more that a simply pioneer score. Written for an assorted chamber group (with strings, piano and winds), it is interesting to imagine what had to be its first public performance and the audience reaction before such a novelty in a, already in and of itself, new artistic and entertainment media. The own composer demonstrated his interest in the work when ended by publishing it with the number of opus 128, curiously as opposed to his famous Le Carnaval des Animaux (1886) -also included in this disk, as with the Quintette avec Piano en la mineur, op.14-, with the totality of the music created for the film subdivided in Five Tables.

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