Camille Saint-Saens is one of the greatest French composers of the 19th century - the heyday of classical music in France. He has worked in many musical genres, including opera, choral music, symphonies, and concerts. Today, the music of Saint-Saens is performed and loved all over the world.
Childhood
Camille Saint-Saens was born on October 9, 1835 in the capital of France. The parents of the future composer were not related to music. My father worked at the Ministry of the Interior and died, having become sick with consumption, when the boy was less than two months old, so he was brought up by his mother and aunt. It was the aunt who noticed little Saint-Saens having an excellent ear and began to play the piano with him from the age of 2.5, and at the age of 3, Camille had already composed his first work.
Young talent
From the age of 7, Saint-Saens studied music with Camille Stamati, one of the best private music teachers in Paris at that time, and even gave concerts for children. And already at the age of 10 he made his debut with a difficult program, which he played by heart, in the large concert hall of Paris Playel. Young talent performed works by Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Handel. The concert was a great success. A talented person is talented in everything - the genius of Saint-Saens was manifested not only in music. From his youth until the end of his life, he was seriously interested in various sciences: humanities - literature, history, philosophy, natural sciences - mathematics, geology, astronomy. He wrote several scientific articles.
In 1848, 13-year-old Camille Saint-Saens was enrolled at the Paris Conservatory, where he studied composition and organ. As a student, he successfully participated in many music competitions, wrote his first symphony in 1850. In 1852, Saint-Saens suffered a failure - he did not become a winner in the prestigious competition for the Roman Music Award.
Confession
After completing his studies at the conservatory, Camille Saint-Saens for a long time (more than 20 years) worked as an organist in the churches of Paris. Such a position did not involve much employment, so he continued his career as a pianist and as a composer. His Symphony No. 1 in E Flat Major won the competition, and the talent of Saint-Saens was appreciated by such composers as Rossini, Berlioz, Liszt. And having heard the young musician playing the organ, Ferenc Liszt, who later became a friend and supporter of the French composer, called him "the greatest organist in the world."
"Carnival of animals"
Since 1861, Saint-Saens began to engage in teaching, becoming a professor of piano in the school of church music, created by Louis Niedermeyer. He taught not only classics, but also contemporary and little-known works of Liszt, Wagner, Schumann at that time, for which he aroused love and admiration among his students.
In the same year, the most famous work of Saint-Saens was conceived - "Carnival of animals." The composer planned to play it with his students, but, for various reasons, finished the work only in 1886. The suite was written as a joke. Almost all the animals in it are depicted in a jokingly satirical image, personifying human vices. Fearing to damage his reputation as a serious composer, Camille Saint-Saëns forbade, while he was alive, to execute and publish all parts of the suite, except the swan.
In 1907, the Swan ballet number was staged by Mikhail Fokin for the legendary Anna Pavlova. This miniature has become so popular that the ballerina performed it about 4,000 times. The Saint-Saens play “The Swan”, whose notes inspired, became known around the world as “The Dying Swan”, thanks to the sensual performance of the great dancer.
The life of a simple person and composer
In 1848, at the age of 40, Camille Saint-Saens married the 19-year-old sister of one of his students, Maria Emile Truffo. The marriage was unhappy and short-lived. Two of their sons died one after another with a difference of 1.5 months, one from illness, and the other fell out of a window on the fourth floor. A few more years the couple lived together, but the tragic events left their mark, and Saint-Saens broke up with his wife forever after 3 years.
Throughout its long and prolific life, the French composer composed 5 symphonies, about 10 concerts for individual musical instruments, about 20 concerts for orchestras, several operas. The most famous work is “Symphony with an Organ”, written in the same year 1886 as “Carnival of Animals”.
In the last two decades of his life, Saint-Saens preferred loneliness, although he traveled extensively throughout Europe and America, where he was especially recognized, with concerts, and then as a tourist. And he was also attracted to Egypt and Algeria, in which he liked to spend the cold season.
Death found the great composer at the age of 86 years suddenly in the same place, in Algeria, on December 16, 1921. Camille Saint-Saëns was buried in Paris at the famous Montparnasse cemetery.