Saint-Saëns composed this work in 1863.
Like many composers who write concertos for instruments they do not play, Saint-Saëns welcomed the advice of the great Spanish violinist, Pablo de Sarasate, when he composed music for solo violin. They met when Sarasate was just fifteen and Saint-Saëns twenty-four, and at the famous violin had approached Saint-Saëns hoping that he would compose something for him to play. « As if it were the easiest thing in the world, he had come quite simply to ask me to write a concerto for him.” Saint-Saëns, like Bruch, Lalo, Joachim, Wieniawski, and Dvořák in the coming years, was flattered and charmed by Sarasate’s request, and agreed at once. The first work he composed for Sarasate, completed that same year (1859), was his A major violin concerto. Four years later, he wrote this Introduction and Rondo capriccioso, a brief work with a reflective opening, almost like an operatic recitative and a dazzling aria full of fireworks, tailor-made to show off Sarasate’s famed technique. It immediately became standard virtuoso fare.

Many people already arranged the piece for clarinet, but I decided to do my own arrangement, trying to make it sound as natural as possible, and after long hesitation (I first tried to play it on Bb clarinet and then D clarinet) I chose to use an A clarinet to get a nice color and respect the original key.

Nicolas BALDEYROU