The two late
Élégies are very different in character. Opus 143 (1915) is the more intimate, and from the first bars uses tonal ambiguity and continual modulation to create an unsettled, troubled atmosphere. The music develops free of formal restraints like, one imagines, one of the improvisations for which Saint-Saëns the organist was famous.
from notes by Duncan Druce © 1999