As the Dreyfus Affair rocks France, Saint-Saëns takes his leave to Egypt ? to create his last, and perhaps most virtuosic, piano concerto.

Camille Saint-Saëns reached the pinnacle of his career in 1886, when both his famous "Carnival of the Animals" and his "Organ" Symphony were first performed. He was 51 ? and yet he'd live on for a further three-and-a-half decades, well into the age of Schoenberg, Stravinsky and Poulenc. His late works have often been unfairly neglected ? seen as 'out of time' in a thrusting new century. This week, Donald Macleod explores the charming and eccentric variety of pieces Saint-Saëns left behind from the last decades of his life.

The last years of the 19th century saw intrigue and conspiracy rock French society, as the infamous Dreyfus Affair exposed prejudice and anti-Semitism at the heart of the nation's political life. But for the sixty-something Saint-Saëns, these were years of new horizons. Donald Macleod explores the composer's final piano concerto ? a fantastical impression of his visit to Egypt, and his little-played ballet "Javotte", for which Saint-Saëns drew on his love of traditional, rustic French life. Show less