This week we move to a composer well-known to most musicians, but a song not often performed. Originally written for voice and orchestra, Camille Saint-Saëns' Extase is a beautiful setting of text by Victor Hugo that is now only rarely performed as a work for either Mezzo-Soprano or Baritone and Piano.

Saint-Saëns opens this intimate work with B Major arpeggiated chords for two measures, providing a calm introduction for the entrance of the voice, with the words "Puisque j'ai mis ma lèvre à ta coupe encor pleine" (Roughly translated as "Since I put my lips to your full cup"). This calm accompaniment continues with similarly intimate lines, but a harmony that slowly builds to more complex chords.

Saint-Saëns returns to a near quote of the opening line with the words "puisqu'il me fut donné de t'en tendre me dire" for what amounts to a second verse, which is quickly followed by a sudden change to B minor.  The third line of this verse returns us to B Major, where Saint-Saëns introduces a new thematic idea that will take us through the rest of the text.

The new theme opens with the text "Je puis maintenant dire aux rapides années passez toujours. Je n'ai plus à viellir." ("I can now say the years always pass quickly. I am no longer aging."). A vocal arpeggiation leads us to a sudden change in the accompaniment, with a short interlude before returning to the arpeggiation as before.

At a passage marked appassionato, Saint-Saëns repeats the text "Mon âme a plus de feu que vous n'avez de cendre. Mon coeur a plus d'amour que vous n'avez d'oubli. ("My soul has more file than you have ashes, my heart has more love than you have forgotten"), with a slow diminuendo to pianissimo, with the accompaniment continuing the diminuendo in a short conclusion.

Only one recording of this work as originally written is available today, that of Didier Henry and Angéline Pondepeyre featured above. The work, however, as seen other recordings as an instrumental work, including one for oboe and piano and the unexpected version for tuba and piano.