Camille Saint-Saëns

The Frenchman Camille Saint-Saëns was educated in the German and Viennese classics, from Bach to Mozart and Beethoven. He wrote in all the established forms: opera, oratorio, symphony, concerto and chamber music. Saint-Saëns took himself very seriously as a composer. Yet Gallic charm and ​joie de vivre constantly rise in his music. It is not surprising that the witty Carnival of the Animals is his best loved work - the one piece he was afraid might damage his reputation.

KEY DATES

1835

1838

1846

1848
1857

1861

1871



1875

1886

1908

1915
  ​1921

Born, 9 October 1835, in Paris, the son of a civil servant.
Begins piano lessons. Can already read and write.
Makes concert debut as pianist aged ten.
Enters Paris Conservatory.
Becomes organist at the Magdeleine Church, Paris.
Teaches Gabriel Fauré at music school L`Ecole Niedermeyer.
Co-founds Société Nationale de Musique, for promotion of  new French music. Plays for Queen Victoria on his first visit to England.
Weds 19 year old Marie Truffot, but the marriage is a failure.
Philharmonic Society in London commissions the `Organ Symphony`.
Writes his first ever piece of film music, for L`Assassinat du Duc de Guise.
Concert tour of America.
​Dies, 16 December. 

KEY WORKS

1863


1868
1871

1873

1874


1875
1877
1880
1881
1886​



​1891

Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, for violin and orchestra.
Piano Concerto No. 2.
Symphonic poem, Omphale`s Spinning Wheel.
Cello Concerto No. 1; symphonic poem, Phaeton.
Symphonic poem, Danse macabre.
Variations on a theme of Beethoven, for two pianos.
Piano Concerto No. 4.
Opera, Samson and Delilah.Violin Concerto No. 3.
Violin Sonata No. 1
Symphony No. 3, `Organ Symphony`;
Carnival of the Animals;
Wedding cake caprice, for piano and strings.
​Africa, fantasy for piano and orchestra.

                                                                   HIS PLACE IN HISTORY

                    HIS MOST FAMOUS WORK

Through most of the 19th century, French music was dominated by opera. Composers, French and foreign alike, were drawn to the glittering opera houses of Paris.  Saint-Saëns, too, wrote operas, wanting a share of the fame and fortune in that field could bring. But his Classical upbringing and his brilliance as a pianist led him to compose many more symphonies, concertos, symphonic poems, sonatas and chamber works. Such a fine and substantial body of orchestral and instrumental music helped to shift the centre of gravity of French music away from the opera house and towards the concert hall. The way was prepared for such 20th-century masters of orchestral and piano writing as Debussy and Ravel. Saint-Saëns himself lived well into the 20th century. Younger French composers tended to regard him as stuffy and old-fashioned. Despite opinion they owed him a great debt all the same.

Carnival of the Animals
Subtitled by Saint-Saëns as a `grand zoological fantasy`, this suite was written for two pianos and a small orchestra. Each section is inspired by different animals, and also wittily parodies other composers` styles , `The Aquarium` and `The Swan` are the best known movements.