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From the child prodigy to the accomplished musician

Saint-Saëns - Partie 1

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History has duly remembered Camille Saint-Saëns’ prolific and prolix compositional oeuvre, but paid rather more scant regard to the fact that, before that, he was a child prodigy – as gifted with a pen as he was at the piano and organ.
As a pianist, he would dominate his instrument over a continuous career spanning nearly 80 years, earning the public’s admiration with his masterful and precise interpretations and prodigious memory. When playing the organ, he garnered acclaim for both his ingenious improvisations and his effortless use of the full range of possibilities offered up by these grand instruments, newly built by Aristide Cavaillé-Coll. He was appointed organist at La Madeleine Church in Paris in 1857, only stepping down 20 years later to pursue his career as a concert pianist. However, cementing such virtuoso status so young can make the way forward as a composer more of a challenge and one’s place must be hard-won. But Saint-Saëns had been composing large-scale works – that had already attracted attention – since the age of 15, and would continue to enrich all musical genres with masterpieces that remain popular nowadays.
Saint-Saëns was also very active on the musical scene of his time. His energy, oratory skills and penchant for controversy made him the spokesperson of a generation of composers who were struggling to rise above the radar and whom he brought together by founding the Société nationale de musique, in 1871, to promote contemporary French music. In 1881 he was elected to the Institut de France and he would take his duties as a member of the Académie des Beaux-arts very seriously.

Born in Paris on 8 October 1835, Charles-Camille was the only son of Victor Saint-Saëns who died three months after his birth. He was raised by two widows, his mother Clémence and great-aunt Charlotte Masson, a good musician, who would quickly reveal his exceptional talents. He was sent to study under a renowned piano teacher, Camille Stamaty, and began a dazzling career as a prodigy. As young as six, he was already playing in the highest-reputed music salons and, in May 1846, at the age of ten, he gave his first public concert with an orchestra, performing concertos by Mozart and Beethoven from memory. Concerned about his fragile health, his mother put the brakes on this precocious career – especially since, in adolescence, he also showed an extraordinary flair for composition, which was also worth encouraging. After a few childhood essays – his first works were written at just three-and-a-half years old –, he took organ and composition classes at the Conservatoire (Music Academy). Despite initially missing out on the Prix de Rome in 1852 (on account of his young age), Camille Saint-Saëns excelled in several instrumental genres. He caught the attention of Charles Gounod and Pauline Viardot, who invited him to perform in her music salon, a magnet for Parisian intellectual and artistic high society.

In 1864 Saint-Saëns once again missed out on the Prix de Rome, this time he was declared too old and “lacking inexperience”. Little matter though, he carried on composing, winning other competitions, reaping his first successes and earning the praise of Berlioz. Henceforth he would juggle his two careers as composer and performer at the highest level. His gifts as a pianist gave him access to music salons, he played at Rossini’s and for Princess Mathilde Bonaparte, which perhaps played a part in his appointment, in 1857 at the age of 22, as organist for La Madeleine Church, the most prestigious parish in Paris. His talent as a pianist and organist was recognised in equal measure – Liszt gushed that he was the finest in the world. All of the musicians passing through Paris came to listen to his remarkable improvisations. From 1861 to 1865, Saint-Saëns taught at the École Niedermeyer which trained choirmasters. He gathered around him a group of students who would remain loyal to him all their lives, including Gabriel Fauré and André Messager, to whom he introduced works hitherto unheard of in Paris.

For Saint-Saëns, a republican right from the start, the fall of the Second Empire and change in political system ushered in an unexpected opportunity to shake up established cultural customs. Developing new repertoires, winning over audiences, opening concert halls, challenging institutions, orchestrating a place for a young generation of composers who were struggling to make themselves heard between the well-worn repertoire of opera and that of mélodie (art song) – these were all endeavours into which Saint-Saëns wholeheartedly threw himself. His powers of persuasion and outspokenness thrust him into the spotlight as the spearhead of the French musical movement: Bizet, Lalo, Delibes, Guiraud, Duparc, d’Indy, Franck, Massenet and many others would rally around his founding, in 1871, of the Société nationale de musique. Saint‑Saëns was also one of the pioneers in reintroducing audiences to Bach, and Gluck and Rameau, whom he republished. He was active on all fronts, and continued to compose at a brisk pace. Symphonies and tone poems, concertos, concert pieces, oratorios, cantatas, songs and chamber music – he encountered success in all genres; only opera remained unconquered.