Saint-Saëns: The Man and His Music

How well do we know Camille Saint-Saëns? Cellist Steven Isserlis and musicologist Flora Willson dig beneath the historical layers to reveal the real picture of this remarkable musician and polymath.
Hear Steven perform Saint-Saëns' Cello Concerto No. 1 with the OAE on Thursday 26 January 2023 at the Southbank Centre. The programme also includes his works Phaeton, Danse macabre and Symphony No. 3 conducted by Maxim Emelyanychev. More info and tickets at oae.co.uk/even...
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[@antoinepetrov]

Incredibly fascinating personality and a true polymath. I cannot fathom why he hasn't earned the popularity and reputation he deserves.

[@itamarbar9580]

Because Brahms and Wagner are right in front of him, creating new original sounds.

[@bucketofbarnacles]

Thank you, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. This series is fantastic. I have greatly enjoyed the Sergio Bucheli video and this one.

[@bgaona]

I like that last comment. We are so concerned with originality as a criteria for quality that we miss some towering musical intellects like Camille Saint Saëns. If we measured JS Bach or Palestrina by the same standard, I think we'd find ourselves unimpressed, and we would be very wrong!

[@brentrogers3244]

It reminds me of this quote from Saint-Saëns's Outspoken Essays: "Above all, let the young avoid all straining after originality. Allow your personal contribution to music to express itself naturally. By eagerly desiring to be original, the result is likely to be a blend of folly and bizarrerie."

[@chambermuses7802]

@@brentrogers3244 Excellent point: one is reminded of Solzhenitsyn's marvelous essay, "The Relentless Cult of Novelty." And of course the obsessive consumerism that idolizes anything "new" and promotes cavalier dismissal of anything "old", serving the beast of planned obsolescence, and filling the earth with discarded trash. And thus my students who contemptuously refer even to films released five years ago as "Oh, that's so long ago...", implying irrelevancy. Brahms studied and revered Bach, as well as Palestrina and other polyphonists, and championed Couperin's *Pièces de clavecin*. Saint-Saëns, too, understood: All great culture is in fact timeless - a ray of eternity that penetrates time.

[@richdisilvio4591]

I have often said, “Saint-Saëns was to France what Tchaikovsky was to Russia.” In a word ‘monumental.’ Yet, I’m often amazed, or rather dismayed, that Saint-Saëns doesn’t get the attention he so deservedly earned. When speaking of the greatest composers quite often his name is rarely or never mentioned. In fact, Classic FM had posted an article about the Greatest Piano Concertos and Saint-Saëns was once again not mentioned. Personally, I think Camille composed the most brilliant ‘full set’ of 5 piano concertos without a mediocrity in the mix. Something no other composer can claim. Each are sublime gems in their own unique way.

[@lolwho]

His 'Fantasie Op.124 Pour Violon et Harpe in A major' is one of the most beautiful violin compositions I ever heard!

[@TomasHradckyComposer]

Nicely done.

[@ARIZJOE]

Carnival of the Animals. I dig Flora's hair. I appreciate her using a timeline to explain Saint-Saëns oeuvre. You can better grasp a composer's style in relations to others, and his or her contribution.

[@matthew_pauls]

Yes. I long felt, okay sure, there is value in being different just to be different, fine, but that I prefer being precisely one's self instead.

[@idraote]

Originality is so overrated. I mean, it is important to innovate and one must encourage artists to do that, but this doesn't mean despising/forgetting those who are more comfortable working along the lines of the existing tradition, especially if their craftmanship is superb as is the case of Saint-Saens (and JSBach).

[@barrymoore4470]

Mozart too was not a significant innovator of the musical idiom of his time, yet he is arguably the most beloved composer in the world.

[@karldelavigne8134]

Such torture to have neither a saucer nor a coffee table.