to San Francisco as France's Official Representative to the Panama–Pacific International Exposition. He attended a performance of the Symphony No. 3 at the 3,782 seat Festival Hall. Karl Muck conducted the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. The composer was given a standing ovation at the performance, which was also attended by composer John Philip Sousa. Saint-Saëns composed another piece especially for the occasion called "Hail California," which included Sousa's famous band. Instrumentation The symphony is scored for large orchestra comprising 3 flutes (1 doubling piccolo), 2 oboes, cor anglais, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, triangle, cymbals, bass drum, piano (two and four hands), organ, and strings. Saint-Saëns' use of keyboard instruments – piano (scored for both two and four hands at various places) and the organ – are unusual additions to the orchestration for a late-Romantic symphony. Following Saint-Saëns' own explanation provided in the program notes he wrote for the London premiere, the decision to include both organ and piano keyboard in the instrumentation stemmed principally from his desire to innovate upon the traditional symphonic scoring practice. Mendelssohn had included the organ in his second symphony, "Lobgesang", but that work is a symphonic cantata, while Vincent d'Indy's Symphonie sur un chant montagnard français, which includes piano continuo, was only begun after the premiere of the Organ symphony. This instrumentation "had not previously factored in an established symphony." Saint-Saëns had appeared as the organ soloist in Bach's A minor Prelude and Fugue at a Philharmonic Society concert programmed on July 2, 1879 (where he also performed his second piano concerto), and it is possible that the presence of this instrument in the concert hall propelled to include the organ. The instrument he had played at that concert was removed in 1882, replaced by a new organ made by Bryceson Brothers & Ellis , a fact of which Saint-Saëns was unaware. This new instrument had a different configuration and it has been suggested that the opening organ chords of the Maestro finale would have been "disappointingly ineffective" as a result. Structure and Analysis Although the symphony contains the normal four-movement structure (and many recordings divide it in this manner), Saint-Saëns wrote it as a two movement work. In the program notes that he prepared for its London premiere, he wrote: A typical performance of the symphony lasts about 35 minutes. The symphony makes