Composer of the Month: Camille Saint-Saëns (Romantic Period)
- Rachel Beard
- Jan 1
- 2 min read
Camille Saint-Saëns (1835 - 1921) was a French composer and a true prodigy, demonstrating perfect pitch at the age of two. His father died when he was three months old, but he was well brought up by his mother and a great aunt. At five, he gave his first public concert, accompanying a Beethoven violin sonata on the piano.
Saint-Saëns studied the organ and composition at the Conservatoire de Paris and became organist at a famed church in Paris in 1857. The composer Franz Liszt, whom he met about this time and with whom he formed an enduring friendship, described him as the finest organist in the world.
More than an organist and pianist, Saint-Saëns’s formidable intellect was not limited to music. He had profound knowledge of geology, botany, butterflies, and math. He enjoyed discussions with Europe's finest scientists and wrote numerous academic articles about acoustics.
Saint-Saëns married late in life and had two sons. However, his sons both died tragically within six weeks of each other, devastating his marriage.
His position as a church organist was merely a support structure for musical life outside. Over the course of his long life, Saint-Saëns was incredibly prolific. He wrote his first symphony at 16 and went on to write four more, along with five piano concertos, three violin concertos, two cello concertos, and some 20 concertante works for soloists and orchestra. He also composed symphonic poems, including the popular Carnival of the Animals and Danse Macabre.
Saint-Saëns has been described both as the French Beethoven and the French Mozart. Towards the end of his life, he undertook a triumphant tour of America but gradually found that his style of composition was no longer regarded as being fashionable by the Parisian chattering classes. Saint-Saëns died in Algeria in 1921.
