Essential Saint-Saëns
A master of many genres and forms, Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) showed prodigious early talent comparable to Mozart's and brought fluidity, impeccable craft and a gift for catchy melody to music composed throughout a 70-year creative life.
Read more…Though best remembered today for a relatively small number of works – among them his "Organ" Symphony, 'Danse macabre', 'Carnival des Animaux' and the 'Introduction and Rondo capriccioso' – Saint-Saëns was a towering figure in French music in the second half of the 19th century. He became increasingly distant from the Parisian musical scene in later life, however: often literally so, spending large periods of time travelling in North Africa. A piano and organ virtuoso from an early age, he displayed similar technical fluency in his composing, a fact that sometimes led to charges of superficiality. At its best, though, Saint-Saëns's music mixes invention with adventurousness and fire with sophistication, with a burning passion detectable beneath the brilliantly polished surface.