More about Camille Saint Saens. This is Part 2.
Camille Saint Saens was close friends with the legendary composers Franz Liszt and Pyotr Tchaikovsky as well as with another renowned French composer , Gabriel Faure .
As mentioned in my last post about Camille Saint Saens, Liszt was a huge help in promoting Saint Saens music, by including Saint Saens music in his own concerts, by staging concerts of Saint Saens operas, and in general doing all he could to help the younger composer.
When Saint Saens was 50 , he began composing another symphony in the early part of 1886.
He had scarcely begun, however, when he received word of the death of Franz Liszt. The news affected Saint-Saëns deeply and he immediately decided to compose his new symphony as a tribute to Liszt, and to dedicate the work to his memory.
The inclusion of a prominent role for the piano was part of this tribute.
Tchaikovsky first met Saint-Saëns during the Frenchman's concert tour to Moscow in November 1875, and the two composers struck up an immediate friendship.
Tchaikovsky praised Saint Saens for his musical mastery and said that another thing that he found so appealing about Saint-Saëns was his briskness, wit, and originality.
Tchaikovsky attended a concert in Moscow in1875 which included performances of Saint Saens music.
Tchaikovsky wrote a review about this concert.
Here are some excerpts of Tchaikovsky’s review :
You can find his review here.
“ At the fourth symphony concert, which took place last Friday, everyone's attention was riveted on the famous Parisian musician Camille Saint Saens, who was making his first appearance here in the threefold capacity of virtuoso, composer, and conductor.
In his homeland of France, Saint Saens belongs to a avant-garde circle which is made up of the most talented contemporary French composers - Massenet , Dubois, Paladilhe, and Bizet (Bizet was an exceptionally gifted composer who died this summer when he was just 36).
In the capacities of virtuoso and composer Saint Saens has made several concert tours in Germany and England. He is very productive as a composer.
Saint Saens made his début here as the soloist in his own G minor concerto. This work is extremely beautiful, fresh, elegant, and rich in delightful details. It reflects both a remarkably thorough knowledge of the classical models, , and also a highly original creative individuality.
All the appealing traits of his nationality—sincerity, enthusiasm, fervent cordiality, intelligence—make themselves felt all the time in the works of Saint Saens. These qualities also pervade his virtuoso performance style, which is full of elegance, thoughtfulness, and careful phrasing, and is free from any affectation whatsoever.
Our public, which is so spoiled in terms of the opportunities it has to hear splendid virtuoso performances, expressed its emotions for Saint Saens through stormy and unanimous applause, both at the end of that concerto of his and after he had finished playing several shorter pieces at the end of the concert.
Saint Saens 's piano concerto is very original in its form: it does not have a slow central movement. Instead he wrote a charming, extraordinarily poignant Scherzo in which (as in the Finale, too) he displays a remarkable mastery of instrumentation, a great deal of humour, fantasy, as well as skill.
Everywhere in this concerto we sense a splendid musician . I would like to draw my readers' particular attention to the appealing artistic individuality of Saint Saens .
Also, where brilliant sound effects are appropriate, Saint Saens definitely knows how to use them with remarkable skill.
In his symphonic poem Danse macabre ,which the audience liked so much, we can clearly discern a creative fantasy that is incredibly rich in resources and which is able not just to invent an original musical idea, but also to present it in a most alluringly beautiful form.
This piece, which seeks to give a tone painting of that very same Dance of Death on which Liszt based one of his most important works (a work which I discussed in detail on an earlier occasion ), belongs, by virtue of its beautiful principal theme, its truly outstanding instrumentation, and the great taste with which the author chooses his orchestral effects, to the most remarkable symphonic works of the new school of music.
If one were to compare it with Liszt’s work on the same subject, then it would be the latter which wins out in terms of depth, power, and staggering pathos, but Saint Saens's is certainly not inferior as far as its beauty and brilliance are concerned.
It is a great pity that our public is not familiar with Saint Saens's other works of this kind, amongst which I would like to point the Russian Musical Society's board of directors to the symphonic poem Phaëton which would surely be a valuable new acquisition for our repertoire.
Review by Pyotr Tchaikovsky 1875 "
Saint-Saëns was greatly saddened by the news of Tchaikovsky's death in 1893 and he wrote a letter to the Russian Embassy in Paris shortly afterwards:
"I would be much obliged to you if you could let people in Russia know the extent to which I share in the grief felt by the friends of the great composer whose talent I admire enormously and towards whom I had been bound by friendship for a long time—a friendship which increased further this summer in England, where I had the good fortune to meet him and spend a few days in his company. His death is a great loss for the art of music.
Camille Saint Saens "
Saint Saens also praises the musical genius of another French composer, Jules Massenet in his 1919 book Musical Memories, but he also states in the same chapter that he had no use for Massenet personally.
More info about Saint Saens Musical Compositions
He composed more than 300 music works, in all genres, including
- 13 operas (including Samson Delilah )
- 5 Symphonies (best known No3 the Organ symphony )
- 3 concertos for violin and orchestra
- 5 concertos for piano and orchestra
- 2 concertos for cello and orchestra
- many pieces for the piano
- approx 100 songs
- chamber music
- organ music
- sacred music including a Requiem
- numerous transcriptions
The following is one of many letters from Franz Liszt to Camille Saint Saens.
You can also find many other Liszt's letters here.
Hanover, October 2nd, 1876
"To Camille Saint-Saens
Very Dear Friend
I am sending you today the transcription for piano of your "Danse macabre," and I beg you to excuse my unskilfulness in reducing the marvelous coloring of the orchestra score to the possibilities of the piano. No one is bound by the impossible. To play an orchestra on the piano is not yet given to any one.
In sincere admiration and friendship,
Your very devoted
Franz Liszt "