Re: Has anyone performed the Saint-Saens Oratorio de Noel??

[eliza-morrison]

This is one of my favorite pieces to play, and I especially love the trio. It is so beautiful!! I had more difficulty with the duet, as conductors sometimes take it at a really brisk tempo and your hands have to jump so much. My best advice (and I realize the Christmas holidays and your gig are over now) would be to be prepared to play it faster than is indicated; work very hard to get it fast so that it doesn’t want to fall apart if you get one of these super-fast tempo conductors. I guess that is good policy generally, but especially in this piece because of all the jumping in the right hand chords.