Camille Saint-Saëns
Each month, we feature a famous composer who has left their mark on the history of music. In these interviews, they tell us their story, and what inspired them to compose their most memorable works. This is your chance to find out more, and get free sheet music of some of their finest tracks! This month, we give the floor to the great French composer Camille Saint-Saënswho didn't take too kindly to our telling him about Carnaval des Animaux.
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Composer of the month: Camille Saint-Saëns
I can't stop hearing about this damned play. Everywhere I go, it's all about the Carnival of the Animals! It's been years now since I forbade its public performance, so it's time to move on. And, as you know, I wrote this play for laughs, for Mardi Gras, so I'll ask you to keep your seriousness, please. I'm not here to talk about compositions I could have written on the back of a restaurant napkin.
The Royal Lion March
I was a promising boy, yes. I was raised by my mother and my aunt, and I first learned to play the piano with my aunt. I remember my first concert: I was 11 and it was at the Salle Pleyel. I think I played a Beethoven concerto there, as well as a Mozart concerto. At the time, I even wrote my own cadenza for the Mozart piece! And I played from memory, without a score, unlike most musicians at the time.
I was the talk of the town with that little concert! A few years later, in 1848, I entered the Paris Conservatoire. There I studied organ and composition, but not only that. For, you see, there are other things in life besides music. I also study astronomy, philosophy, mathematics and history. Besides, I haven't only written books about music! If you'd done your job as a journalist, you'd know that I've written about Greco-Latin archaeology, astronomy and even verse and comedy. But then, you'd rather talk to me about Carnival of the Animals, wouldn't you?
To be quite honest with you, music remained my main occupation. One of my great regrets at the time was not winning the Prix de Rome. It's more a question of ego than anything else, I was already becoming famous with pieces like the Urbs Roma Symphony (1854) or the Piano Quintet (1854). I didn't really need these pompous titles; I was already a frequenter of musical Paris, a friend of Berlioz, Gounod and Rossini. Incidentally, one day while improvising on the organ at the Eglise de la Madeleine, Franz Liszt heard me. He became my friend. He considered me the best organist in the world.
Samson & Dalila, My heart opens to your voice
Samson & Dalila is Saint-Saëns' only opera in the repertoire. He wrote a dozen other lyric works, rarely performed or recorded, and sometimes completely forgotten.
This opera, as its name suggests, recounts the biblical episode of Samson's seduction by Delilah, taken from the Book of Judges. Here we invite you to (re)discover an emblematic aria from the work, entitled Mon coeur s'ouvre à ta voix (My heart opens to your voice). In the context of the opera, Samson, torn between his fight to free the Hebrews from the Philistines and his love for Delilah, has just confessed his feelings to her after she sings "I love you" to him. Delilah's melody begins with a gentle confession, before a request to Samson: "Answer my tenderness", over which the harp enters.
This aria reflects the opera as a whole: a subtle blend of different styles. The beginning of the piece is marked by perfect, traditional Western chords that gradually undergo discreet alterations, transforming the melody into an Arabian melisma, before returning to Western style in a finale marked by a powerful "Ah! Verse-moi l'ivresse".
This famous song, arranged for violin and piano, has survived the decades and remains one of the most beautiful love songs ever written. There are countless references and tributes to this true gem: it even features at the end of pop group Muse's Belong To You.
Fossils
Are you aware that Carnaval des Animaux includes the theme of J'ai du bon tabac? I think I'll have to keep saying it until the day I die: it's not a serious work! I wanted to amuse the gallery, nothing more!
Let me return to the 1860s.
By 1860, my fame was infinite. I wasn't even thirty yet everyone was talking about me! I was a piano teacher at the Ecole Niedermeyer. I taught Gabriel Fauré, who also became my friend. I wrote symphonies, and my first piano and violin concertos. I was a committed artist! I defended Wagner. I conducted Liszt's symphonic poems, performed for the first time in France, when he was unknown.
Then, in the 1870s, I was the first Frenchman to compose symphonic poems, a major genre of Romanticism. My influences were Mendelssohn, Schumann, Wagner and Liszt. I admired Berlioz! Everyone saw me as the heir to the Romantic school.
If I'm telling you all this, you can imagine that it's because everything has changed. You may be a mediocre journalist, but you know what happened in 1870. The war. I was in the 4th Battalion of the National Guard. I fought for my country! On January 19, 1871, during the battle of Buzenval, the Germans killed the painter, singer and dear friend Henri Regnault.
Danse Macabre
Danse Macabre is a symphonic poem in G minor composed in 1874, based on the poem Egalité-Fraternité by Henri Cazalis. Legend has it that the premiere of this work was a disaster, that it was whistled at, but this is untrue: the Colonne premiere was booed. Like Carnival of the Animals, each instrument has an almost theatrical role to play.
Twelve harp strokes at the beginning to mark the twelve strokes of midnight. The pizzicati of the strings evoke death, which taps its heel to awaken the dead. The violin plays Diabolus in musica, the name given by Guido d'Arezzo to the diminished fifth (here A-E-flat). On the xylophone, we recognize the sound of bones dancing and clashing.
There are three main themes. The first, on flute, is rhythmic, the second, on violin, is melodic. The third features the trumpet supported by cymbals, quoting the beginning of the Dies Irae, but transposed to major, which sounds rather odd - you could see infernal spirits mocking this phrase from the liturgy of the dead.
Once again, it's an absolutely major work of classical music that has stood the test of time, and which can be found in many other contexts, not least the cinema.
Long-eared characters
It's true that this period marked a turning point in my life as a committed artist. With the events surrounding the Paris Commune, I fled to England to join my friends Charles Gounod and Pauline Viardot. This gave me the opportunity to attend a performance of Gounod's cantata Gallia. The same evening, we heard an overture by the German composer Ferdinand Hiller. The cantata was a huge success, the overture none the wiser! "France is avenged!" I wrote to my mother in a letter.
Back in France, I founded the Société nationale de musique with Romain Bussine. French concert societies are never short of praise for German music, but French music is always shamefully shunned - it's the last straw! I love my country and I love the music of my country, and I will fight until my death to give it back the prestige it deserves. I was wrong about Wagner: his music has nothing to envy of that of his foreign colleagues - it's mediocre, at best. So you can imagine that my friendship with Franz Liszt is no longer relevant.
Faced with this invasion, and then with the stupid compositions of the new generation (Debussy, Strauss, Dukas), I advocated traditional music, the real thing. Bach, Handel and, above all, Rameau. When you have those three, why would you want to do anything else?
String Quartet No. 1 in E minor
String Quartet No. 1 in E minor was composed in 1899 and premiered on December 21 of the same year. It is dedicated to the Belgian violinist Eugène Ysaÿe. At the age of 64, Saint-Saëns was already well known as an advocate of traditional music. Yet this work is far from dogmatic or slick, as this genre can be. On the contrary, we are struck by the unexpectedness of the forms and the mobility of the ideas. The sonorities are at times impressionistic, and the composer turns his back on the Beethovenian model of equal desks, as the first violin is very often dominant. Far from post-Wagnerian chromatic complications, the always limpid harmonic language is rich in fleeting ambiguities. An unjustly forgotten work in the repertoire of Camille Saint-Saëns, yet a testament to his genius.
The Elephant
You're stubborn! I told you I wouldn't talk about the Carnival of the Animals. This great zoological fantasy is nothing in the grand scheme of things! The same year I wrote my Third Symphony, my masterpiece, the pinnacle of my glory! And you want to talk to me about a little piece of junk?
I'm sometimes criticized for my patriotism, or my hostility to the music of younger generations. However, it has to be said that the critics proved me right. Despite a few failures (I won't go back over the appalling masquerade that was The Yellow Princess), I was a musical composition mastodon! Between Samson et Dalila and my Third Symphony, my reputation was immense. In France, I was President of the Académie des Beaux Arts and Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur; in England, I was Doctor honoris causa of Cambridge University in 1893 and of Oxford University in 1907. I made triumphant tours of the United States, and even composed Uruguay's national anthem!
My wedding? You're really missing the point. I can tell you a little about it, yes, it'll be rather quick. In 1875, I married Marie-Laura Truffot. I wasn't very attached to this "love" story, I was mostly devoted to music - we didn't even go on a honeymoon. I had two children with her. The first, André, fell from the balcony of our apartment at the age of two and a half, in 1878. Marie-Laure could no longer breastfeed the second, Jean-François, so she took him to a wet nurse in the provinces. My second child died a few months later, probably of pneumonia. After years of growing estrangement, I separated from my wife, without even bothering to divorce. So you'll understand why I attach very little importance to this story and the misfortune it has brought me.
Romance without lyrics
Of the 420 pieces written by Camille Saint-Saëns, he wrote only one Romance sans lyrics. This work, composed in 1871 and published in 1903, is built in the traditional ternary form: A-B-A' with a short coda. The coda, though short, is a rather interesting part of this piece.
Conventionally, the coda takes elements that have appeared previously and resolves them to bring the piece to a close. Here, the coda doesn't take up previous melodic elements at all, but has a very special character of ascending figures.
This short, pretty piece is suitable for amateur pianists and young students. Be careful, however, as the writing itself may pose a problem: you still need to maintain continuity in phrased, even if there are big leaps between chords!
The Swan
Yes, well, Le Cygne is perhaps the only thing worth listening to in Le Carnaval des Animaux. In fact, it's the only part of the piece I've authorized to be played. It's funny how this piece has become a reference for cellists. It's pretty, but I don't find it transcendent, so if cellists find something in it, so much the better.
At the end of the 19th century, I was tireless! I traveled a lot, and took part in many original projects, all the while continuing to compose. I restored pieces by Lully and Marc-Antoine Charpentier for Molière's plays, I composed for Sophocles' Antigone and for all kinds of plays, I founded a music festival in Béziers... I was always on top form. I was even the first major composer to write a film score: L'assassinat du Duc de Guise in 1908. My time was essentially divided between music and travel. People thought I was immortal: I went on a successful tour of the United States at the age of 80. While my homeland has grown weary of my music, preferring the absurd new generation, English-speaking countries continue to praise me. I've written no less than 420 works over the course of my life, and yet in France I'm regarded as a witness to a bygone era. As long as I can stand on my own two legs, I'll keep on playing! I'm 86 this year, and I don't intend to retire. Next week in Dieppe, I'll be celebrating the 75th anniversary of my first concert.
I've been fighting to defend traditional music for fifty years now, and perhaps I'm its ultimate guardian. Maybe I'm right, but everything seems to prove me wrong. It's too late now, and at my age I can only hope for one thing: that in a hundred years' time, people will remember me for something other than Carnaval des Animaux.
Camille Saint-Saëns died shortly after his Dieppe concert, aged 86. According to legend, he uttered the following words before dying: "This time, I think it's really the end". A state funeral was held at the Eglise de la Madeleine for the last representative of nineteenth-century music. Although Camille Saint-Saëns is known for his exaggerated patriotism and nationalism, he is also one of France's greatest musicians. His influence on the composers who followed him was essential, right up to Maurice Ravel. We still hear him today in many contexts. One of the most famous instances of his music is "Aquarium", the seventh movement of Carnaval des Animaux, which is played before every screening at the Cannes Film Festival.
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