Saint-SaÑ‘ns / Saint-Saens - Complete piano concertos (Collard, Previn)

Camille Saint-SaÃ«ns

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Charles-Camille Saint-SaÃ«ns (French: [ÊƒaÊl kamij sÉ›ÌƒsÉ‘Ìƒs]; 9 October 1835 â€“ 16 December 1921) was a French composer, organist, conductor and pianist of the Romantic era. His best-known works include Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso (1863), the Second Piano Concerto (1868), the First Cello Concerto (1872), Danse macabre (1874), the opera Samson and Delilah (1877), the Third Violin Concerto (1880), the Third ("Organ") Symphony (1886) and The Carnival of the Animals (1887).

Saint-SaÃ«ns was a musical prodigy, making his concert debut at the age of ten. After studying at the Paris Conservatoire he followed a conventional career as a church organist, first at Saint-Merri, Paris and, from 1858, La Madeleine, the official church of the French Empire. After leaving the post twenty years later, he was a successful freelance pianist and composer, in demand in France, mainland Europe, Britain, and the Americas.

As a young man, Saint-SaÃ«ns was enthusiastic for the most modern music of the day, particularly that of Schumann, Liszt and Wagner, although his own compositions were generally within a conventional classical tradition. He was a scholar of musical history, and remained committed to the structures worked out by earlier French composers. This brought him into conflict in his later years with composers of the impressionist and dodecaphonic schools of music; although there were neoclassical elements in his music, foreshadowing works by Stravinsky and Les Six, he was often regarded as a reactionary in the years before and after his death.

Saint-SaÃ«ns held only one teaching post, at the Ã‰cole de Musique Classique et Religieuse in Paris, and he remained in it for less than five years. It was nevertheless important in the development of French music: his students included Gabriel FaurÃ©, among whose own later pupils was Maurice Ravel. Both of them were strongly influenced by Saint-SaÃ«ns, whom they revered as a genius.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camille_Saint-Sa%C3%ABns

A handsome man, who mysteriously held the cognitive dissonance “I am a second rate composer” with “I compose music like turning on water”. The French Military March of the Suite Algerienne is one of the greatest of that form. Posthumously teamed up with poet Ogden Nash and humorist/impressionist Jonathan Winters in Carnival of the Animals (Amazon), musical humor he wouldn’t allow to be released in his lifetime, presumably because of its effect on his academic reputation. (He-hawing jackasses played by violins, dancing dinosaur bones played by xylophone.) Look at one of his dozen or so photographic portraits, a magnificent Monty Wooleyesque white beard impeccably trimmed & combed. An attempt at seriousness with one eye, but an irrepressible smile in the other eye of a really, genuinely nice man.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2wNAWBPFiI

My personal favorite Saint-Saens composition. I first heard it years ago on the classical station in Cleveland while driving. A beloved Aunt had just died at 51 with cancer and, with tears flowing, I had to pull over to write down the name of the selection.

That 4 hand piano at 27:54 must be what the music in heaven must surely sound like!

Genius!

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.