Camille Saint-Saëns

Charles Camille Saint-Saëns (IPA: ) (9 October 1835 – 16 December 1921) was a French composer and performer.

Legacy

Relationships to other composers

During his life, Saint-Saëns was either a friend or enemy to Europe's most distinguished musicians. He stayed close to Franz Liszt until Liszt's death and maintained a fast friendship with his pupil Gabriel Fauré until the end of his life. But despite being a strong advocate for French music, Saint-Saëns openly despised many of his fellow French composers such as Franck, d'Indy, and Jules Massenet. Saint-Saëns also hated the music of Claude Debussy; he is reported to have told Pierre Lalo, "I have stayed in Paris to speak ill of Pelléas et Mélisande." The personal animosity was mutual; Debussy quipped: "I have a horror of a sentimentality and I cannot forget its name is Saint-Saëns." On other occasions, however, Debussy also acknowledged an admiration for Saint-Saëns' musical talents.

Related Topics:
Jules Massenet - Claude Debussy - Pierre Lalo - Pelléas et Mélisande

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Saint-Saëns had been an early champion of Richard Wagner's music in France, teaching his pieces during his tenure at the École Niedermeyer and premiering the March from Tannhäuser. He had stunned even Wagner himself when he sight-read the entire orchestral scores of Lohengrin, Tristan und Isolde, and Siegfried, prompting Hans von Bülow to call him "the greatest musical mind" of the era. However, despite admitting appreciation for the power of Wagner's work, Saint-Saëns defiantly stated that he was not an aficionado. In 1886, Saint-Saëns was punished for some particularly harsh and anti-German comments on the Paris production of Lohengrin by losing engagements and receiving negative reviews throughout Germany. Later, after World War I, Saint-Saëns angered both French and Germans with his inflammatory articles entitled Germanophilie, which ruthlessly attacked Wagner.

Related Topics:
Tannhäuser - Sight-read - Lohengrin - Tristan und Isolde - Siegfried - Hans von Bülow - Aficionado - 1886 - German - World War I

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On 29 May 1913, Saint-Saëns famously stormed out of the première of Igor Stravinsky's Le Sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring).

Related Topics:
29 May - 1913 - Igor Stravinsky - Le Sacre du printemps

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Reputation

Saint-Saëns began his musical career as a musical pioneer, introducing France to the symphonic poem and championing the radical works of Liszt and Wagner in a time when Bach and Mozart were the norms. He had been the embodiment of artistic modernity during the 1850s and 1860s, but soon transformed himself into a crusty and somewhat bitter reactionary. By the time he entered the 20th century, Saint-Saëns was an ultra-conservative, fighting the influence of Debussy and Richard Strauss. This is hardly surprising—Saint-Saëns' career began while Chopin and Mendelssohn were in their prime, and ended at the dawn of the Jazz Age. But it is this crotchety image that endures.

Related Topics:
Symphonic poem - 1850s - 1860s - Reactionary - 20th century - Richard Strauss - Chopin - Mendelssohn - Jazz

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As a composer, Saint-Saëns has always bordered on the edge of obscurity. He is disparagingly known today as "the greatest second-rate composer" and "the greatest composer who was not a genius". He is remembered chiefly for his popular but critically unsuccessful works such as Samson et Dalila and Le Carnaval des Animaux.

Related Topics:
Samson et Dalila - Le Carnaval des Animaux

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