Camille Saint-Saëns
Camille Saint-saëns was born in Paris on October 9, 1835. He was extraordinarily precocious. After some piano instruction from his aunt he gave a remarkable concert in Paris in his ninth year A comprehensive period of study followed at the Paris Conservatory where he won several prizes, though never the Prix de Rome. In 1852 he received a prize for Ode à Sainte Cécile, and in 1853 the première of his first symphony attracted considerable praise. From 1858 to 1877 he was the organist of the Madeleine Church in Paris, a position in which he achieved renown as a performer on the organ. From 1861 to 1865 he was an eminent teacher of the piano at the École Niedermeyer, and in 1871 he helped organize the distinguished Société Nationale in Paris devoted to the introduction of new music by French composers. From 1877 his principal activity was composition in which, as in all the other areas in which he had been engaged, he soon became an outstanding figure. He was made Chevalier of the Legion of Honor in 1868; Officer in 1884; Grand Officer in 1900; and in 1913 the highest rank in the Legion of Honor, the Grand-Croix. He became a member of the Institut de France in 1881. Saint-Saëns paid his first visit to the United States in 1906, and made his first tour of South America in 1916 when he was eighty-one. He remained active until the end of his long life, appearing as pianist and conductor in a Saint-Saëns festival in Greece in 1920, and performing a concert of his own music in Dieppe a year later. He was vacationing in Algiers when he died there on December 16, 1921.
Though Saint-Saëns lived well into the 20th century and was witness to the radical departures in musical composition taking place all about him, he remained a conservative to the end of his days. He was, from a technical point of view, a master. There is no field of musical composition which he did not cultivate with the most consummate skill and the best possible taste. He was gifted not merely with a fine lyrical gift but also at other times with passion, intensity, and a sardonic wit. He wrote numerous compositions in a light style, but many of his most serious efforts are readily assimilable at first hearing and readily fall into the category of semi-classics.
The Carnival of Animals (Le Carnaval des animaux), for two pianos and orchestra (1886) finds the composer in a gay mood. This is witty, ironic and at times satiric music. The composer regarded the writing of this work as a lark, thought so little of the composition that he did not permit a public performance or a publication during his lifetime. Nevertheless it is one of the composer’s most infectious compositions, one that never fails to enchant audiences young and old. It was described by the composer as “a grand zoological fantasy,” and its fourteen sections represent pictures of various animals. The suite begins with a march (“Introduction and Royal March of the Lion,” “L’Introduction et marche royale du lion”). After a brief fanfare, sprightly march music is heard. We can readily guess who is at the head of the parade by the lion’s roar simulated by the orchestra. After this we are given a picture of a hen through the cackle in piano and strings, and of a cock through a clarinet call (“Hens and Cocks,” “Poules et coqs”). This is followed by music for two unaccompanied pianos intended to depict “Mules” (“Hémiones”). Actually this portion was planned by the composer as a satire on pianists who insist on playing everything in a strict rhythm and unchanging dynamics. In the fourth movement, “Tortoises” (“Tortues”), two amusing quotations are interpolated from Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld. A cumbersome melody in a stately rhythm then introduces us to the “Elephant” (“L’Eléphant”). In this part the composer’s fine feeling for paradox and incongruity asserts itself in contrasting a ponderous theme with a graceful waltz tune. In the halting music of the next movement, “Kangaroos” (“Kangourous”), the composer aims his satirical barbs not on these graceless animals but upon concert audiences who insist on talking throughout a performance. “Aquarium” consists of a sensitive melody for flute and violin against piano arpeggio figures. In “Personages With Long Ears” (“Personnages à longues oreilles”) donkeys are represented by a melody with leaping intervals. The “Cuckoo in the Woods” (“Le Coucou au fonds des bois”) consists of a melody for clarinet. “Aviary” (“Volière”) reproduces the flight and singing of birds. “Pianists” (“Pianistes”), the composer feels, belongs to the animal kingdom; the attempt by embryo pianists to master his scales is here described amusingly. “Fossils” (“Fossiles”) quotes four popular themes from the classics: from Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, Saint-Saëns’ Danse macabre, and two French folk songs. Satire and wit are replaced by the most sensitive lyricism and winning sentiment in the thirteenth movement, a section so famous that it is most often heard apart from the rest of the suite, and in many different versions and arrangements. This is the movement of “The Swan” (“Le Cygne”), a beautiful melody for the cello in which the stately movement of the swan in the water is interpreted. A dance inspired by this music was made world famous by Anna Pavlova. The suite ends with the return of all the preceding characters in a section entitled “Finale.” In the present-day concert hall, it is sometimes the practice to present The Carnival of Animals with an appropriate superimposed commentary in verse by Ogden Nash preceding each section.
Danse macabre, tone poem for orchestra, op. 40 (1874) is a musical interpretation of a poem by Henri Cazalis. The composition opens with a brief sequence in the harp suggesting that the hour of midnight has struck. Death tunes his violin and almost at once there begins a demoniac dance, its abandoned theme first presented by the flute. Another equally frenetic dance tune is given by Death, the xylophone simulating the rattle of bones. In the midst of the orgy the solemn refrain of the “Dies Irae” is sounded. Dawn is announced by the crowing of a cock. The wild dance dies down and the dancers disappear in the mist.
The Deluge (Le Déluge), op. 45 (1876), is an orchestral prelude to a Biblical poem, text by Louis Gillet. The inspiration for this music comes from a passage in the Genesis: “And God repented of having created the world.” Solemn chords preface a fugal passage built from a theme in violas. After this a beautiful melody for solo violin unfolds symbolizing humanity in its original state of purity.
The Havanaise, op. 83 (1887) is a popular composition for violin and piano which makes effective use of a languorous Spanish melody set against the habanera rhythm. “Havanaise” is the French term for “Habanera,” a popular Spanish dance in slow ²/₄ time said to have originated in Cuba.
Henry VIII, an opera, is remembered for its effective ballet music. The opera, with libretto by Leonce Detroyat and Armand Sylvestre was first performed at the Paris Opéra on March 5, 1883. Since its setting is England during the Tudor Period, the popular ballet music is restrained, sensitive and graceful. It is heard in the second act during a festival given by the King of Richmond to honor the Papal Legate. Much of the material for these dances was acquired by the composer from a collection of Scottish and Irish tunes and dances provided him by the wife of one of his librettists. The Ballet Music is made up of five sections. The first is a restrained Introduction. Then comes “The Entry of the Clans.” This music, it is amusing to remark, is English rather than Scottish in style because the composer confused the English Dee with the Scottish river of the same name and decided to use the English melody “The Miller of the Dee.” The third movement is a “Scotch Idyll,” this time a bright Scottish tune in the oboe. The Ballet Music continues with a “Gypsy Dance” in which a Hungarian-type melody for English horn is followed by brisker music whose main subject is offered by the violins. The suite concludes with “Gigue and Finale.”
The Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, op. 28 (1863) is for violin and orchestra. The main theme of the Introduction is found in the solo violin in the second measure, accompanied by the strings. A forceful chord for full orchestra brings on the Rondo Capriccioso section, whose main melody is presented by the solo violin. The solo instrument later on also introduces a contrasting second theme. After some embellishment of both ideas, the orchestra loudly interpolates a third subject which is repeated by the solo violin. All this material is amplified, often with brilliant virtuoso passages in the violin. A climactic point is reached when the first theme of the Rondo Capriccioso is pronounced by the orchestra against broken chords in the violin. This composition concludes with a coda marked by virtuoso passages for the solo instrument.
The Marche heroïque, for orchestra, op. 34 (1871) was originally written for two solo pianos but later the same year orchestrated by the composer himself. The composition is dedicated to one of Saint-Saëns’ friends, the painter Alexandre Regnault, who served in the French army and was killed during the Franco-Prussian War. This music has a seven-bar introduction following which the principal march subject is given by the woodwind accompanied by plucked strings. In the middle trio section a contrasting theme is offered by the trombone against an accompanying figure taken from the earlier march melody. The march music returns in the closing section, but more vigorously than heretofore. The composition ends with a powerful coda.