Camille Saint-Saens: interesting facts, videos, biography

Camille Saint-Saens

Camille Saint-Saens - one of the most significant and outstanding figures in the field of French art of the second half of the XIX century. He was a man of excellent education, who not only became an outstanding pianist, organist and composer, but also created his own music academy. Saint-Saens became a teacher for Gabriel Fauré and many other talented musicians and left behind him many brilliant works, among which the suite "Carnival of Animals", the symphonic poem "Dance of Death" and "Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso" for violin and orchestra became especially popular.

A brief biography of Camille Saint-Saens and many interesting facts about the composer can be found on our page.

Short biography of Saint-Saens

Father Saint-Saens was born in Normandy, mother - in Champagne. The grandfather of the musician, Jean-Baptiste-Nicola Saint-Saens, was engaged in agriculture and led the village of Rumenil-Butey. All his children, except for the two sons of Camille and Vector, followed in the footsteps of their father and became farmers. Camille began to serve in the church, and Victor settled in the office.

Despite the pain, Victor quickly achieved success in his career and took a high post. In 1834, a man married Mademoiselle Clemence Collen. The girl was of Jewish origin, her aunt and uncle brought her up, with whom Clemence moved to Paris.

Having played the wedding, the newlyweds began to live with their parents Clemence, soon the woman gave birth to a son, who in the future will become the most ingenious musician and composer. The boy was named a double name - Charles-Camille (in honor of the deceased uncle Camille and great-aunt Charlotte, who became his second mother). After the baptism of the baby, the family was in misfortune - because of severe consumption, Victor dies, not even reaching 40 years of age. The child remained in the upbringing of a young mother and great-aunt.

The childhood of the future composer deserves special attention. On the one hand, the child at such a young age lost almost all his relatives, on the other hand, two women surrounded the boy with incredible care and attention. Without a doubt, it is this factor that made the musician's childhood truly happy and shaped his calm and kind nature.

The mother of Saint-Saens drew pictures in watercolor and from an early age taught her son to be creative and beautiful. Grandma Charlotte was also a creative person. Charlotte Masson remarkably owned the piano, and musically developed her gifted grandson.

Camille had poor health, and this is very scary for female parents, because his father Victor died young enough. Doctors recommended sending the boy to live in the countryside to improve the condition of the baby. Up to two years, Camille lived in a small area Corbey on the Seine. Returning to Paris, a boy under 12 years old was leaving for vacations in Vassi (his mother's birthplace) every year. It was there that Saint-Saens learned to listen to the sounds of nature and admired the colorful landscapes of the surroundings.

From the biography of Saint-Saens, we learn that Camille from an early age was interested in various musical sounds and beautiful melodies. As an adult, a man often recalled listening to every “sly” and even making old doors creak in order to listen to their sound. Saint-Saëns was very fond of the noise of a huge kettle, which was set on fire every day. The young musician sat down beside him and eagerly waited for the kettle to start "singing" every minute louder and louder until the water fully boiled. This is how the future composer's musical ear was formed - he had extraordinary attentiveness to the intonations of life.

The early work of Camille Saint-Saens

In 1853, a talented young man graduated from the conservatory and got a job as an organist in the old Saint-Merry temple in Paris. There were a lot of parishioners in the church, about 26,000 people. During the year, about 200 weddings took place in a sacred place, on which music was paid. Fees were also charged for the work of the organist at funeral ceremonies, therefore, together with a small scholarship, Saint-Saëns managed to earn a decent remuneration. The organ on which Camille played was severely damaged, it could be used for simple services, but it was clearly not enough for full church concerts.

Then the young musician had a lot of free time, which he spent for the benefit of himself. Camille continued to play the piano, tried himself as a composer and in 1853 wrote his first Symphony Es-dur. The composition was attended by military fanfare and an extensive brass percussion group, which completely identified the mood of the public of those times. It was then that Napoleon III came to power, and France began to "rise from its knees." For his symphony, the composer received the first award from the Society of Saint Cecilia. The great composers of that era Rossini, Berlioz and Liszt, as well as the popular performer Polina Viardot, highly appreciated the talent of the young musician and supported his creative ideas. In 1858, a man took the post of organist in the church of St. Magdalene.

Saint-Saens was long considered a real conservative in music, however, he always liked current trends. Many composers of that era wrote their compositions under the influence of Wagner's operas, but Camille always had his own point of view on this matter. According to the composer, he with admiration and respect treats the bizarre works of Richard Wagner. According to Saint-Saens, the writings of Wagner were in many ways superior to his work, but he would never copy his unique style.

Fight for the Rome Prize

In 1861, Saint-Saens began teaching at a music school in the capital of France, where he trained professional musicians to work in French churches. When the founder of the school, Louis Niedermeier, died in the spring of 1861, Camille took up his post as piano professor. Conservative colleagues were greatly surprised when they learned that the teacher includes lessons on modern music in the learning process. The most talented student of Saint-Saens - Gabriel Foret told that his teacher opened for him modern works, which he had never heard because of the traditional curriculum. Foret admitted that he had become attached to Kamil, as if he were his own father, had a real admiration towards him and thanked his teacher all his life for his invaluable lessons.

In 1864, Saint-Saens again surprised the public when he re-became a member of the Rome Prize. Most of the then popular musicians and composers considered such a decision to be strange, because Camille was already a respected person in music circles. The man once again suffered a failure. Berlioz, who judged the prize, wrote that the prize went to a young talent who did not expect his victory at all. The judges were confident that the victory will go to Saint-Saens, who was considered by all to be a brilliant composer and a great artist. But the winning contestant, despite his young age, seemed to burn with fire from within and had an incredible zeal for creativity. Berlioz voted for the young man, but inside he was very upset, because the maestro understood that Saint-Saens would be greatly distressed by his loss. As a result, the winner of the Roman Prize - Victor Zig was not able to build a musical career, and this award was his greatest achievement.

After leaving Nidermann’s school, Camille continued his work. In 1867, a man received an award at the International Competition in Paris for the cantata "Prometheus Wedding". In 1868, Camille presented his first orchestral work to the public.

Saint-Saens great organist

According to the composer himself, he was madly in love with playing the organ and felt very confident about this instrument. When Saint-Saens studied at the Conservatory, he fell into the class of musician Francois Benau, whom he called a weak organist, but an excellent teacher. Saint-Saens did not show much success in school for a long time, and his fellow students laughed at Camille’s game, so he was first admitted to the class as a “listener”, and only after some time the young man became a full-fledged student. The persistence and diligence of the young man did their job, and by the end of 1849 he had already received the second prize for the body. In 1853, Saint-Saens played the organ for several months in the church of Saint-North, and then served 5 years at the church of Saint-Merry. Four years later, a new organ was built in the temple, at the opening ceremony of which the musician played Fantasy in E-flat major, which became his first published organ composition. Critics have called this work serious, elegant and even religious.

Then for almost 20 years (from 1858 to 1877) Saint-Saens served in the magnificent church of St. Magdalene, which was located in the very center of Paris. The church was a huge number of parishioners and regularly held lush holidays. Saint-Saens then perfectly mastered playing the organ, and already began to actively improvise on the instrument - he played the notes only when he felt bad. His ability to fantasy and improvisation was highly appreciated by well-known composers, while the parishioners and the management were not always satisfied with the musician’s play. Among the parishioners were influential and rich people who wanted to hear familiar and familiar music at divine services and weddings. To criticism from the side of Saint-Saens answered that he agreed to observe musical traditions, but only if the preaching of the priest will be similar to the dialogues of comic operas.

At the beginning of his service in the church of St. Magdalene, the composer wrote the organ play “Wedding Blessing”. The work, in which he felt a secret delight and sublime joy, begins with an unusual game of quart consonances, and continues with a majestic, slow and consistent motive. The play was performed during the life of the author, and after his death - for example, it was this composition by Saint-Saens that sounded at the wedding ceremony of Princess Maria (daughter of King George V of England) and Henry Charles George (Viscount Lassells).

In 1688, Camille wrote 3 rhapsodies in the style of Breton folk songs. The rhapsodies fascinated the listener with simplicity and conciseness and fully conveyed the composer’s interest in French folk music. Melodies that the author used when working, he heard during the river trip of Brittany, when he came to visit his friend the composer Gabriel Fauré. It was to him that Saint-Saens dedicated his work.

The famous French organist Charles Widor said that both Bach, and Mozart, and Mendelssohn would have been delighted with the organ game of Saint-Saens. The musician reached such a peak of mastery that the performance on the organ of a written play was no different from an improvised one. Saint-Saens brilliantly played preludes, fugues, improvisations, fantasies, individual pieces.

Personal life of Saint-Saens

The personal life of the composer, in contrast to the creative one, was extremely unfortunate. At 40, he married the sister of his pupil, Maria Truffaut, who was only 19. There were two children in the marriage, but Saint-Saens did not have time to fully engage in their upbringing. At the beginning of their life together with Maria, the man wrote the opera Samson and Dalida, the piano concert No. 4, the Flood oratorio, and the suite for orchestra. He managed to go to Russia with a concert, live in Switzerland, and returned only in 1878. When Camille arrived home, terrible news awaited him - his two-year-old son Andre died, falling from the 4th floor. A month and a half later, his second child also died from an unknown ailment.

3 years after the tragedy, their family finally broke up. When Saint-Saens was on holiday with his young wife, he suddenly disappeared somewhere. It turned out the composer just ran away. Truffaut never saw her husband after that, although she had never divorced him all her life (Maria died at the age of 85). According to another, unofficial version, his little son was spinning at the New Year tree and accidentally touched it, after which the clothes on the baby caught fire. When the child's heart-rending cries were heard by the mother, it was already too late. A heartbroken woman grabbed the child and burned with him. Returning home, Saint-Saens saw two charred bodies on the floor, after which he began to go insane. Only the love of music gave him the strength to live on.

The last years of his life the musician constantly toured, acting as a pianist and conductor in his homeland and in other countries of the world. Saint-Saens's last appearance on the stage took place in the summer of 1921. The composer lived almost 90 years - in Algeria, he suffered a heart attack. The body of Saint-Saens was transported to the cemetery de Montparnasse.

Interesting facts about Camille Saint-Saens

• The biography of Saint-Saens says that the future composer, from the age of 3, was already learning to play the piano, at 5 he began to write his first musical works, and at 10 he performed at concerts as a pianist.

• Saint-Saens ecstatically listened to Russian composers M. Glinka, P. Tchaikovsky. It was he who introduced France to the Russian clavier of the brilliant opera "Boris Godunov" by M. Mussorgsky.
• Saint-Saens became a pioneer in recording music. In 1904, the Gramophone Company, which was located in London, sent director Fred Gasberg to Paris to record arias from the operas Ascanio and Samson and Delilah together with the composer.
• The musician not only played virtuoso musical instruments, but also created works on musical theory, edited works by old authors, and was engaged in conducting.
• From 1870, Camille became a professional music critic. His bright and exciting articles had a great response from readers.
• In 1875, the Society of Musicians from Russia invites the composer to perform in St. Petersburg. In the northern capital, Saint-Saens meets N. Rubinstein and P. Tchaikovsky.
• Saint-Saens selflessly fought in battles during the Franco-Prussian war. The composer said that during the fierce battles did not feel panic, overtaking him during performances in front of the audience.
• The composer suffered eye disease and tuberculosis, but even medical bans and progressive ailments could not force Saint-Saens to quit his favorite work.
• In addition to music, the composer was interested in other forms of art, the history of France, religion, mathematics, astronomy and archeology.
• According to the biography of Saint-Saens in 1913, the composer planned to arrange a farewell performance and end his musical career, but the war prevented this. He spoke many more times and raised a considerable amount for military funds.
• When the maestro died, the newspaper "The Times" wrote that the world had lost not only a virtuoso and influential composer, but also a representative of the great changes of music of the XIX century.

Music of Saint-Saens sounds in films

Saint-Saens had a strong will, he completely controlled his emotions, so it was impossible to guess what was going on in his soul. Many believe that despite his talent and genius, the composer wrote very few outstanding works, because he reasoned too reasonably. Saint-Saëns managed to preserve the true French musical traditions, which at that time lost their influence due to the innovative ideas of Wagner. The composer masterfully maintained a balance between conservative concepts and fresh ideas, and brought up many talented successors. Saint-Saens was not afraid to experiment, he performed completely different works, which is why he became a significant figure of that era in the musical life of France and other countries of the world.