The short Romance in F was composed by early 1874, with a dedication to the French horn player Henri-Jean Garrigue. Garigue gave the first performance in February 1874, with Saint-Saëns at the piano, and other horn players quickly took up the Romance. The first edition mentions that the work can also be played on the cello – and Saint-Saëns himself accompanied a performance of the Romance with a cellist on at least one occasion. Garigue was subsequently the author of an important horn tutor, the Méthode pour le cor à pistons, published in 1888. Saint-Saëns arranged the Romance for horn and orchestra and in March 1878 he conducted a performance in Strasbourg with another soloist, Joseph Stennebruggen. Saint-Saëns originally wrote the piece to expand the very limited repertoire of music for horn and piano at the time: it’s in his most elegant and polished style, unpretentious and beautifully crafted, based on two main melodic ideas, both of them typically alluring.

Nigel Simeone 2013