CAMILLE SAINT-SAËNS
Reproduction of a photograph from life, by Eug. Pirout, Paris.
CAMILLE SAINT-SAËNS
The eminent composer, Camille Saint-Saëns, was born in Paris, October 9, 1835. While yet an infant he manifested an innate gift for music. We are informed by the most reliable of his biographers, his grand-aunt, that, observing the deep attention with which the child listened to music, she gave him his first lessons on the piano when he was scarcely three years old. It would not be easy to find a record of earlier precocity. His mother relates, when her son began to play the first exercise, C, D, E, F, G, she discovered him playing it with only the right hand, using the other hand to press the weak little fingers down, in order to sound each note distinctly. It was ingenious, almost virtuosity! That a child like Saint-Saëns should make rapid progress was inevitable. When his fingers were sufficiently strong to strike the keys of the pianoforte without great effort, his grand-aunt, believing that she had reached the end of her task with him, placed him in charge of a professional teacher of the pianoforte. It was not long before this teacher was replaced in turn, by a master worthy of such a pupil, and wholly capable of guiding his studies. This master was Stamaty, and the choice was admirable. In addition to Stamaty, who was only a teacher of the pianoforte, M. Maledan, an able instructor in harmony and theory and a man of decided talent, was engaged to guide the more serious musical studies of young Saint-Saëns.
The boy was ten years old when his mother resolved that he should make the acquaintance of some of the notabilities of the musical world before making his first appearance in public. To this end she gave a private soirée at her house, the result of which was echoed through the press of Paris. The lad performed, with Stamaty, one of Mozart’s Sonatas for four hands with surprising ease and in remarkable sympathy with the composer’s style. Then, with a quartet accompaniment, he performed some of the works of the great masters, including fugues by Bach, a concerto by Hummel, and Beethoven’s concerto in C minor.
A few months later, he made his début before the public in a concert given in the Pleyel Salon, so much favored of artists, and where Chopin and Rubinstein, not to name other great pianist-composers, also made their first bow before a Parisian audience. Little Camille, as he was then styled, achieved a flattering success. The most eminent critics sang his praises and predicted a great future for him. Never did they prophesy with more true foresight than they did on that occasion. L’Illustration published his portrait, and there were some who went so far as to draw a comparison between him and the incomparable Mozart!
This brilliant début in nowise spoiled the young pianist; on the contrary, its effect only increased his zeal for study. He attended the course of lessons in composition under Halévy at the Conservatoire as an élève auditeur, literally, a listening pupil, for one year. He then obtained admission to the organ class where he won the first prize. Encouraged by his success he next appeared as a competitor at the Institut (Prix de Rome), but failed. He never again crossed the threshold of the Institut de France until long afterward, when he was received with honor and glory as a member of the “Section Musicale.” When he competed for the Prix de Rome, he was only seventeen years of age, but he had already attained celebrity as a pianist and an organist, and had also distinguished himself as the composer of several important scores. One of these was an ode to St. Cecilia, for chorus, solo, and grand orchestra, which was performed by the Société Sainte Cécile, of which Seghers was the leader. The newspapers were as severe upon Saint-Saëns as a composer, as they had been satisfied with his début as a pianist. “In the absence of inspiration of the first order, or of brilliant genius,” writes the critic of the Gazette Musicale, “it could be wished that the composer showed a little more fougue and dash, were it only in a few paltry flights which reveal a young artist’s desire to create for himself an individual style.”
With Saint-Saëns inspiration came later, and it was pure inspiration, without fault, and was not wanting in originality.