Camille Saint-Saens essays

Camille Saint-Saens essays Camille Saint-Saens was born in Paris, France, on October 9, 1835. His father was a clerk in the French Government Service and died shortly after Saint-Saens was born. Throughout his life he became very close with his mother, and often turned to her for help and advice. Saint-Saens was a child prodigy and could read and write at age three and almost immediately began composing. At the age of five he gave his first public performance. When he was ten years old he had all of Beethovens piano sonatas memorized and he gave a concert that included Beethovens Third Piano Concerto, Mozarts B flat Concerto, along with works by Bach, Handel, and Hummel. He wrote his first symphony at sixteen and in 1852, at seventeen, Ode a Sainte Cecile made this young composer known. Throughout his life he created the Bible opera Samson et Dalila, and his most famous work is The Carnival of the Animals, which is written for two pianos and an orchestra. In his lifetime, he composed over three hundred works, including thirteen operas. As a young man, Saint-Saens was a radical and a strong promoter of the music of Wagner and Schumann during a period when that was considered unfashionable. He also promoted the music of earlier composers like Handel and Bach. At the age of thirty-six he helped found the Societe Nationale de Musique to encourage new French music. Camille said of himself that he Lived in music like a fish in water, and that his playing reflected many of his characteristics as a composer. These include fluency, elegance, brilliance, and a lack of emotional depth. He was hailed by Liszt as the worlds greatest organist. In 1875, he fell in love with nineteen year old Marie-Laure Truffot. He married her, but became bored with her immediately and often sent her to stay with his mother. During their marriage they had two children, but they died with...