Biography
Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns () was a French composer, organist and conductor who wrote works including Rondo Capriccioso, Samson and Delilah and Symphony No.3 'Organ'.
Life and music
Born in Paris in , the son of an audit clerk and carpenter’s daughter, Saint-Saëns showed signs of exceptional musical ability from infancy.
He gave his first private concert to an audience at the tender age of five, started seriously composing the following year, and aged 10 gave his professional debut with an orchestra playing a Mozart concerto and the first movement of Beethoven’s C minor Concerto.
Saint-Saëns was one of the most gifted polymaths in musical history. Quite apart from his exceptional skills as a musician – composer, virtuoso pianist/organist, conductor, distinguished pedagogue – he was also a multi-linguist, a consulted authority on literature and the arts in general, a notable author and poet in his own right, and could hold his own with experts in a whole variety of ‘spare-time’ disciplines, notably archaeology and astronomy.
His most notable work of all is the Danse Macabre (), a cornucopia of demonic delight, featuring a scordatura (unconventionally
The Complete Works of Camille Saint-Saens
I don’t think I’ve taken many Class A opiates in my life, although I got prescribed oxycodone, after an unfriendly incident with a gas boiler1. I do also have memories of being given kaolin and morphine as a child to treat a stomach bug. In both cases the ‘interesting’ effects of the drugs were disappointingly understated: the oxycodone simply meaning that I couldn’t drive home from the emergency department, but otherwise being barely noticeable2.
So when I found out that my grandfather, who was a pharmacist in a small country town during World War II, used to make his own highly effective ‘cough mixture’, with farmers driving in from hundreds of miles around (this was outback Australia) to get their weekly medication for their persistent coughs (very persistent in many cases, lasting for months or years), I didn’t seriously think it could have been anything to do with its key active ingredient being heroin.
The point being here, is that I have little idea about the effects of such drugs on my psyche, and I’ve never had inspired flights of fancy under the influence. I suspect, though, that Saint-Saens did, hanging out as he did
Overview
Camille Saint-Saëns () was a French composer, pianist and organist, often associated with Romanticism, although he had a more classical approach in his style. A child prodigy, he excelled at the piano and organ from an early age and became a key figure in 19th-century French music.
His work is vast and eclectic, covering all genres: symphonies, concertos, chamber music, operas and sacred music. Among his most famous works are The Carnival of the Animals, Danse Macabre, Samson and Delilah (especially the famous aria My Heart Opens to Your Voice), as well as his Symphony No. 3, known as the Organ Symphony.
Influenced by classical masters such as Mozart and Beethoven, he opposed the more modernist tendencies of Debussy and Ravel, which earned him a sometimes conservative image. However, his sense of refinement, his virtuosity and his talent as an orchestrator remain undeniable.
Until the end of his life, Saint-Saëns travelled extensively and maintained an intense musical activity. His legacy continues to influence classical music, particularly through his ability to combine lyricism and formal rigour.
History
Camille Saint-Saëns was born in in Paris, but he never kne
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