Camille Saint-Saëns

Camille Saint-Saëns (1835–1921) was one of the most gifted and versatile musicians France ever produced: a child prodigy to rival Mozart, a brilliant pianist and organist, and a composer of effortless craft across every genre. Liszt called him the greatest organist in the world; as a composer he gave France some of its best-loved works, including the opera Samson et Dalila, the Third ‘Organ’ Symphony, the Carnival of the Animals and a series of elegant, superbly written concertos. A central figure in French musical life (he co-founded the Société Nationale de Musique to promote French composers), he was also a restless intellectual with a lifelong interest in philosophy and astronomy, and an inveterate traveller. Conservative in his later years and sometimes dismissed as merely facile, he is better seen as a consummate craftsman whose clarity, elegance and melodic generosity define a certain ideal of French music.