-Here's a quick challenge.

Name two of the biggest, most powerful sound-producing instruments that human beings have ever designed.

How about a full symphony orchestra of 90 musicians?

We've all thrilled to this sound -- not just in concert halls, but also in the musical scores of Hollywood films.

But what about another instrument capable of making enormous sounds, an instrument able to fill the biggest cathedrals and shake the foundations?

How about the pipe organ?

[ Organ playing ] Now, what if we could combine those two sound sources?

Can you even imagine it?

Well, that's exactly what French composer Camille Saint-Saens did in his 3rd Symphony.

I'm George Marriner Maull, artistic director of The Discovery Orchestra, inviting you to join us now as we explore the finale of Saint-Saens' "Organ Symphony."

[ Applause ] [ Applause continues ] [ Applause fades ] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [ Applause ] [ Applause continues ] -Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm George Marriner Maull, artistic director of The Discovery Orchestra.

And we're so very pleased to have you with us for this Discovery Concert.

That was the exciting coda, or extra ending, that concludes the final movement of Camille Saint-Saens' "Symphony No.

3."

Sometimes, you know, in life, it's actually good to know where we're going, where we're headed.

And that's why we decided to start at the end of this movement, instead of the beginning.

Now we're going to start our journey from the beginning of the movement toward that wonderful coda.

If, for some reason, you were attending, for the first time, a performance of Saint-Saens' "Symphony No.

3" or perhaps listening to it as a recording, right up to the moment of the finale, you might find yourself wondering, "Why is this composition called the 'Organ Symphony'?"

Believe me, when the finale begins, all doubt would be erased.

[ Laughter ] I'd like to ask Mark, our organist, to play the very first measure of the finale for us.

[ Organ plays ] You get my drift.

[ Laughter ] Let's begin by noticing some things in the introduction.

At number 1 in your listening guide, after the first and second loud chords in the organ, the orchestra responds.

It's kind of a question-and-answer moment.

My question to you is, does the response stay on one level or does it descend or does it ascend?

This is a good opportunity to get our listening turned on and functioning.

And there's a visual cue in the guide.

Here's the music.

[ Organ plays ] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ So, what do you think?

Does it stay on one level?

Go downstairs or go upstairs?

-Upstairs.

-Upstairs.

Exactly.

When a musical idea repeats at a higher or lower pitch level, we call it a sequence.

So in this case, we have the orchestra playing an ascending sequence.

Now we see, at number 2 in the listening guide, that a hymn-like melody is played by the strings, the organ, the timpani, and the question mark.

What other instrument is playing here?

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ So, what did we think?

-Piano!

-The piano.

Yeah, it's the piano.

By a show of hands, how many of you detected the piano?

Well, I see not every single hand went up.

Let's listen to the piano part by itself just so we know what we're listening for.

Elizabeth and Eileen, would you please play your piano part?

[ Piano playing ] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ It was actually unusual at the time this was written to have a piano be part of the orchestra, not a solo instrument, as in a concerto, but part of the orchestra.

Alright, let's see what this passage would sound like without the piano part.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ It can be very gratifying to notice subtle aspects of the musical element that we call timbre, the source of the sound.

For instance, to notice and feel the effect of the piano, we're going to go on now to play the music at number 3 in your listening guide one time for you.

It's quite bombastic.

The melody at this moment is the same one that we just had at number 2 in the guide, but it's going to be much louder here.

♪ ♪ Now we're going to play the entire thing for you.

Count the number of times.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ And the number of times was?

-Four.

-If this was challenging for anyone, actually, don't worry -- we have a foolproof way for you to count the number of times it happens.

Just count the cymbal crashes.

[ Laughter ] Try it that way once and raise your hand for each cymbal crash.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Well, we have to give you some easy listening assignments.

[ Laughter ] The main thing that we are going to discover in this program about Camille Saint-Saens are two traits of his mind, his mental process.

One is called elaboration, and the other is called fluency.

These are two traits that all of us have.

Saint-Saens, like many other composers, develop these traits of elaboration and fluency to a very high degree.

When psychologists talk about elaboration as an ability, they discuss a person's being able to come up with a variant or variation of an idea.

Fluency, in the context of creativity, is the ability to generate many variants in a relatively short space of time.

And highly creative people become astoundingly elaborative and fluent.

Let's put this into context in this music.

Look at number 4 in your listening guide.

We see there is something identified as the 1st theme.

Listen to the second violins and cellos play the first six notes of the first theme.

♪ Does that sound like anything else that you've listened to in this program?

Went by kind of fast, didn't it?

Listen to it again.

They'll play it slower for you.

♪ And now much slower.

♪ Should sound very familiar.

What does it remind you of now?

-The introduction!

-Yeah.

the music of the introduction, at number 2 in your listening guide.

Truth is, in writing this symphony, Saint-Saens also made use of a musical structure that was very popular when he was alive -- cyclical form, in which themes presented in earlier movements keep reappearing in later movements.

For example, the theme at number 2 and number 4 in your listening guide originally appears in the first movement.

I'm going to have Peter Winograd, our concertmaster, play this music from the first movement, and raise your hands if you detect that theme, if it sounds familiar.

But, remember, elaboration and fluency are the words of the day.

It won't sound exactly like it does in the finale.

♪ Now let's slow this idea down, okay?

Peter's only going to play the first six 1/8 notes of the music.

It's in a minor key, but it's the same theme, okay?

It's just in different clothing, another disguise.

♪ Now listen to it in major.

♪ We finally recognize it as how it appears in the finale.

Now let's listen to it again in the context and speed that Saint-Saens wrote it in the first movement.

♪ Alright, elaboration and fluency.

Raise your hand if you think that developing your abilities of elaboration and fluency just might help you create solutions for some of the problems in your life.

Well, back to our finale.

Camille Saint-Saens was one of those annoying little children who are musical prodigies, people like Mozart, who leave the rest of us astonished at their abilities.

Saint-Saens apparently started giving piano recitals when he was 5, but he waited until he was 10 to make his first official public debut.

[ Laughter ] And later, when he was a student at the Paris Conservatory, he studied the organ and eventually wound up as the organist at the most prestigious Catholic church in Paris, the Church of St. Mary Magdalene.

But after 20 years there, he decided to leave that position and focus on performing as a piano soloist and conductor, as well as, of course, devoting himself to composition.

But think about it -- as a church organist, he would have had the opportunity to become very familiar with all of the great organ music that composers such as Bach and Handel wrote.

So it's not surprising that, at number 4 in your listening guide, he decided to write a very short fugue, one of Handel's favorite forms for writing a movement.

We call a short fugue, very short fugue, that occurs in a movement that is not a fugue a fugato.

All fugues work like a round, like "Row, Row, Row Your Boat," in which there is a main melody that's repeated in an imitative fashion.

Fugue differs from a round in that, whereas in a round, everyone starts on the same pitch -- ♪ Row, row, row your boat ♪ ♪ Row, row, row your boat ♪ -- in a fugue, each instrument or voice part actually starts on a different pitch.

♪ Row, row, row your boat ♪ ♪ Row, row, row your boat ♪ Now, at number 4 in your listening guide, I'm going to ask the second violins and the cellos to play the entire main idea -- or we call it a fugue subject -- this first theme for you now.

♪ Now, rather than ask you to sing that back to me, since it's a little tricky, we can certainly sing at least the first six notes.

I'll sing them first, and then you sing them for me, okay?

♪ 1-2-3, 4-5-6 ♪ -♪ 1-2-3, 4-5-6 ♪ -Good.

Now, as you can see at number 4, the second violins and the cellos play this first.

Then it's passed to the violas, oboes, and the clarinets and then to the first violins.

We're going to start the music at number 4.

Answer the question -- how many more times is the fugue subject played?

And if you're really listening, which instruments play it?

♪ ♪ ♪ How many more did you find?

-None.

-None.

We played the wrong music on purpose.

[ Laughter ] At each Discovery Concert, at some point, we just have to make certain that you're really listening.

[ Laughter ] You would be amazed at what we notice out of our peripheral vision when we're up here performing.

Some people have drifted off into a nice sleep.

[ Laughter ] Others are busy reading the program notes.

Or perhaps we can tell, by the look of utter astonishment on some patrons' face, that they have just read in the program that their next-door neighbor made an enormous contribution to the Arts Center.

[ Laughter ] Why do we bring this to your attention?

Because composers like Saint-Saens wrote their wordless music in such a way that every abstract sound they wrote was related to the sound before it, as well as to the sounds after it.

It's as though they're giving a speech communicating with us, except there are no words, just musical sounds.

And if we miss some of those sounds, we won't be able to fully enjoy the sounds that follow.

We actually have to make a conscious decision to give music our complete, undivided attention.

And if we do this, we can have some of the most moving, emotional experiences of our lives.

So, there it is -- the most important thing I will say to you today.

Back to number 4.

We promise to play the correct music this time.

And you tell us how many more times of the first theme, that fugue subject, occurs after the first three occurrences and which instruments play it.

♪ ♪ ♪ In this little fugato, this short fugue on the first theme, how many more occurrences of the first theme occurred after the first three?

[ Indistinct shouting ] Well, we're getting lots of answers, which is good.

It means you're really listening.

The truth is, there were two more, okay?

And the first of those was played by the cellos and the contrabasses and bassoons, and the second was played by the woodwinds and the brass.

We're going to play this fugato for you again.

Raise your hand for each occurrence, from the very first one to the fifth one.

♪ ♪ ♪ In a sonata-form movement, there is always a first theme, which we've already explored -- we just played it for you -- and there is usually a contrasting second theme.

In fact, we already played the second theme for you when we were making sure you were really listening and not just hearing the music while you thought of other things.

The character of the first theme is very intense and driven.

Now, if you wanted to create a theme which was, in contrast, something completely different, would such a theme be loud or soft?

-Soft.

-And would it be choppy or smooth?

-Smooth.

-Alright.

Listen to the music at number 6 in your listening Guide.

We'll play from number 6 all the way until the end of number 8.

Your mission?

Notice, feel how contrasting the second theme is.

Notice that the composer also makes use of different instruments as he repeats the second theme.

Each solo instrument or combination of instruments conveys its own unique feeling.

And finally, at number 8, there are two questions to answer.

Fill in the blank where the question mark is and also notice what rhythm the timpani is playing.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Alright, what goes in that blank?

-Clarinet.

-Clarinet.

Clarinet.

Good.

And what rhythm was the timpani playing?

[ Indistinct shouting ] Which theme?

-First theme!

-"Da-da-da, da-da-da."

Theme 1, right?

Theme 1 is the rhythm that the timpani was playing.

It's sort of like Saint-Saens does not want us to forget that the first theme is still lurking in the background -- alright?

-- even though we've gone on to a new theme.

Listen to the music at number 8 now in your listening guide, played only by the solo instruments and the timpani.

♪ ♪ In sonata-form movements, there are three large sections.

We've been exploring the first of these, the exposition, listening carefully to the first theme and the second theme.

Now we're going to proceed to the development at number 9 in your listening guide.

In the development, composers change or develop one or more of the themes from the exposition.

We have two questions for you about the music at number 9.

Which theme is developed?

The first or the second?

And you actually have a 50% chance of getting the correct answer.

[ Laughter ] Also, the music at number 9 will be repeated.

You decide if it repeats at the same pitch or whether it repeats at a lower pitch or at a higher pitch level.

Does everyone understand the listening assignment?

Here's the music now at number 9.

♪ ♪ ♪ So, which theme was developed?

-The first.

-The first one, yes.

I hope the first one.

Da-da-da, da-da-da.

And was it repeated at a higher or lower pitch level?

-Higher.

-Higher.

Yes.

Higher.

We can feel that the composer is intentionally ratcheting up the emotional tension here in the development.

Now listen to the music at number 10, where Saint-Saens actually gives us another theme, something we haven't had before.

♪ ♪ ♪ Have we encountered this theme before?

No?

Maybe?

If so, where?

Actually, it's in the introduction.

I'm going to ask our first trombonist, Michael, and our bass trombonist, Jack, to play their parts at number 10.

They're going to play it exactly as written.

♪ ♪ And now in the same speed, but in a major key instead of a minor key.

♪ ♪ It's what the orchestra plays between the loud organ chords at number 1, except that, at number 10, we have an augmentation of the idea.

It's stretched out in this version.

Here's what it sounded like in your listening guides at number 1 in the introduction.

♪ It was the answer that the rest of the orchestra played to the organ chord right at the very beginning.

Elaboration and fluency.

As the development proceeds at number 10 in your listening guide, more and more sound just keeps pouring out of the orchestra.

The strings are playing the rhythm of number 1 -- da-da-da, da-da-da, da-da-da -- until we arrive at number 11, when Saint-Saens makes use of a device we call imitation.

We talked about it earlier in the context of a round and a fugue.

I remember that I used to be able to drive my brother absolutely insane when we were little kids by repeating what he said right after he said it.

[ Laughter ] Perhaps some of you remember similar moments in your childhood.

Here at number 11, the winds of the orchestra are imitated by the strings, and the rhythm that is being repeated is "da-da-da."

That's the rhythm of...

Which theme?

-The first.

-The first theme.

Right.

First theme.

Da-da-da.

Now we're going to divide the audience in two parts so that you can viscerally understand what they'll be doing up here in the imitation section.

When I point to you, I want you to go, "Da-da-da," so that we do this imitation, that we know what it feels like to do this in an orchestra.

Ready?

And...da-da-da.

-Da-da-da.

-Da-da-da.

-Da-da-da.

-Da-da-da.

-Da-da-da.

-Da-da-da.

-Da-da-da.

-Exactly.

To get 90 people to do that correctly together is why orchestras rehearse.

Now... [ Laughter ] And Saint-Saens further intensifies this imitation by shortening the distance between the imitations.

At the end of it, he goes, wind, strings, wind, strings, wind, strings, wind, strings.

No more da-da-da, da-da-da, da-da-da, da-da-da.

It's much tighter at the end.

Alright, listen to the build-up from number 10 and the imitation at number 11 in your listening guide.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Now we have arrived at a really important moment in a sonata movement, the recapitulation.

It's when the composer begins to write music that sounds like it did at the beginning, in the exposition.

Now, in a usual sonata-form construction, let's say by Haydn or Mozart, a composer such as they would bring back the first theme exactly or almost exactly as it appeared in the beginning of the exposition.

And if you've forgotten what the first theme sounded like at the beginning of the exposition of this movement, we'll play it for you now just to remind you what first theme sounded like in the exposition.

♪ ♪ ♪ Alright, so, we have that firmly in mind.

But remember our two words for the day -- elaboration and... -Fluency.

-Right.

-At number 12, Saint-Saens decides to literally press us, aurally and emotionally, against the wall using spine-tingling cymbal crashes, as well.

Listen to what he does to his first theme in the way of changing it in the recapitulation.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ How did he change it?

What did he do to it?

How about stretching it out like saltwater taffy being made on the boardwalk?

Instead of going "da-da-da, da-da-da, da-da-da," he wrote, "da...da...da...da...da" and then stuck a special little part on the end -- "Da, da, da, da."

Alright, so, this is a big change from da-da-da, da-da-da.

Elaboration, fluency.

At 13 in your listening guide, you see the word "stretto," which is an overlapping imitation.

In other words, I might start to say something, and you've decided to imitate me exactly, word for word, but instead of politely waiting for me to finish, you interrupt me and finish after I do.

Listen to what the lower strings, French horns, and trombones start with here.

♪ Alright, now, that's the kernel of the idea.

Now I'm going to ask the trumpets and bassoons to join in.

Raise your hands when you notice the overlapping imitation, or stretto, beginning.

♪ Now, it should be very apparent how they're overlapping each other.

Now, this is a transition that we were playing that leads us to the second theme.

Again, the second theme is also going to be presented in the recapitulation.

And he gives us a very similar version that we had in the exposition, not like the changes he made to the first theme.

We'll play it for you and ask you to fill in the blanks -- okay?

-- at number 14 in your listening guide.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ So, the first question mark was the... -Violins.

-"Violins," did we say?

And the second question mark was... -The flute.

-The flute.

Exactly.

Now, in the second part of number 14 in your guide, the organ plays two very soft chords.

You might not even notice them.

Mark, would you play the first of those chords for us?

♪ Also has a nice little resolution.

Beautiful chord.

Alright.

So, we see that Saint-Saens does not just use the organ as a bombastic instrument, but sometimes as a very subtle timbre.

We're going to play the second half of number 14 for you again.

Raise your hand when you detect those very soft organ chords.

♪ ♪ ♪ You know, Mark, I've been meaning to ask you, knowing that you play the organ in church and as a soloist frequently, what is it like playing the organ as part of a big symphony orchestra?

-Well, besides being a thrill, of course, the organist has to learn how to count rests.

[ Laughter ] Organists are never playing with other folks.

Usually, we're leading the band and playing by ourselves, so...

But it was amazing, Maestro -- just the -- yesterday after rehearsal, leaving this school, I saw a church on the other side of the street and realized suddenly that was the first church I played organ at as a 14-year-old.

And in that service at that church, I learned how to lead the congregation.

I was kind of the master of my own fortune, if you will, leading everyone.

And now it seems to have come full circle, and here I am not independent anymore, but interdependent on these other musicians, being one of the other wonderful colors of the orchestra.

-Thank you.

[ Applause ] At number 15, we see that the development is actually brought back.

It proceeds pretty much as it did at number 9.

But when we get to number 17, Saint-Saens delivers yet another variant on the first theme in a sort of question-and-answer format that sounds like this.

♪ Question.

♪ Answer.

♪ Question.

♪ Answer.

♪ Think about this.

Since the start of this movement, Saint-Saens has given us four different versions of the first theme -- the one at number 2, the one at number 4, the one at 12, and the one at 17 that we just played.

Fluency -- the ability to create many variants of an idea in a short space of time.

Well, we've finally arrived at our destination, the coda, or special ending, where we started our discovery process at the beginning of this program.

To set his exciting coda in motion at number 18 in your listening guide, Saint-Saens instructs the orchestra to play fast, which we will do.

Then he tells us to go even faster, until, suddenly, he slams on the brakes.

Now, when composers manipulate the speed of the music in this fashion, it's never just on a whim.

It's a calculated decision designed to make us viscerally feel these changes in the tempo or speed of the music as we listen with our complete attention.

Saint-Saens is going to speed up the music twice and slow down the music twice before he finishes the movement.

What we'd like to ask you to do is to stand, if it feels comfortable to do so -- otherwise, just raise both arms -- when you sense the music is slowing down.

Then sit down when it speeds up again.

And, finally, stand once more when the music slows down for the second and final time.

Does everyone understand this assignment?

Alright, here we go.

Here's the music from number 19 to number 23.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [ Applause ] Thank you.

You may sit down.

It's good to notice tempo changes, isn't it?

But let me say that we intentionally left off the last chord to emphasize the importance of tension and release in music.

Composers of wordless, abstract music like this symphony, they build tension and release into their music various places along the way.

Some of these can be very subtle.

Others, like last chords, are usually blatantly obvious releases of tension.

Musical release is what gives us a feeling of completion.

Well, as we know, life can be very challenging at times.

In fact, the list of challenges we face personally can often feel overwhelming.

At The Discovery Orchestra, our entire reason for existing is to help people learn to listen better so that they may receive the most enjoyment possible from all the music in their lives, especially their classical-music listening.

As my mentor, Dr. Saul Feinberg, likes to say, "The more we perceive, the more we receive."

Knowing that, from time to time, we can all use a really uplifting experience, we wish to recommend the finale of the "Third Symphony" of Camille Saint-Saens to you.

If you're lucky enough to be able to attend a live performance of this work, we certainly encourage you to do so.

But with our present-day technology, we all can avail ourselves of the incredibly positive experience of listening to this music in our homes almost anywhere, anytime we want.

Here now is the finale of the Saint-Saens "Third Symphony."

Those of you in the live audience may follow your listening guides.

Those of you in our television audience may follow portions of the guide on the lower third of your screen.

And if you would like a copy of the full listening guide, please visit our website at DiscoveryOrchestra.org.

I am George Marriner Maull speaking for all the members of The Discovery Orchestra, reminding you to listen better.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [ Cheers and applause ] [ Cheers and applause continue ] [ Cheers and applause continue ] [ Cheers and applause continue ] [ Cheers and applause continue ] [ Cheers and applause continue ] [ Cheers and applause continue ] [ Cheers and applause continue ] [ Cheers and applause fade ]