Saint-Saëns
Saint-Saëns was a musical prodigy, making his concert debut at the age of ten. After studying at the Paris Conservatoire he followed a conventional career as a church organist, first at Saint-Merri, Paris and, from 1858, La Madeleine, the official church of the French Empire. After leaving the post twenty years later, he was a successful freelance pianist and composer, in demand in Europe and the Americas.
As a young man, Saint-Saëns was enthusiastic for the most modern music of the day, particularly that of Schumann, Liszt and Wagner, although his own compositions were generally within a conventional classical tradition. He was a scholar of musical history, and remained committed to the structures worked out by earlier French composers. This brought him into conflict in his later years with composers of the impressionist and dodecaphonic schools of music; although there were neoclassical elements in his music, foreshadowing works by Stravinsky and Les Six, he was often regarded as a reactionary in the decades around the time of his death.
Saint-Saëns held only one teaching post, at the École de Musique Classique et Religieuse in Paris, and remained there for less than five years. It was nevertheless important in the development of French music: his students included Gabriel Fauré, among whose own later pupils was Maurice Ravel. Both of them were strongly influenced by Saint-Saëns, whom they revered as a genius.
Saint-Saëns
BEETHOVEN Cello Sonata No. 3 in A major, Op. 69
GRIEG Cello Sonata in A minor, Op. 36
Short works by Bridge, Bruch, Glazunov, Grieg, Popper and Saint-Saëns
Studio recordings · 1926-29
Total duration: 79:25
Felix Salmond, cello
Simeon Rumschisky, piano
DELIUS Orchestral Music
SAINT-SAËNS Carnival of the Animals
IBERT Divertissement
Recorded 1952-1954
Total duration: 66:03
The Concert Arts Orchestra
conducted by Felix Slatkin
Acoustic studio recordings, 1919-1924
Total duration: 64:44
The Philadelphia Orchestra
PROKOFIEV Symphony No. 1
DEBUSSY Images: No. 2 - Ibéria
SAINT-SAËNS Danse Macabre
R. STRAUSS Don Juan
Recorded live, 25th March, 1950
Total duration: 57:53
NBC Symphony Orchestra
conducted by Arturo Toscanini
SAINT-SAËNS Cello Concerto No. 1
ELGAR Cello Concerto
VARIOUS COMPOSERS Short works
Recorded 1926-9
Total duration: 77:11
W. H. Squire, cello
George Thomas Pattman, organ
Hallé Orchestra
Sir Hamilton Harty, conductor
GLUCK Airs de Ballet
SAINT-SAËNS Ballet Divertissement from Henry VIII
RAVEL Mother Goose – Suite
Music by Bach, Fauré, Moszkowski, Pierné, Beethoven
Studio Recordings · 1927 and 1930
Total duration: 71:54
Walter Damrosch, conductor
National Symphony Orchestra
New York Symphony Orchestra
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