Only a handful of the composer's works remain in the repertory, prominent among them Carnival of the Animals, an example of his gift for musical characterization and satire. He was received as a hero every time he visited England.Īs late as 1920, Saint-Saëns was still creating elegant, Classically-oriented compositions - although by then chiefly for audiences in the English-speaking world. Saint-Saëns traveled the world as a virtuoso pianist (he began to play, spontaneously, at the age of two, we're told), visiting Africa, South America (he composed Uruguay's national anthem), Russia - where he became friendly with Tchaikovsky - and the United States, which received him with open arms and open coffers.

His critical writings are voluminous he wrote as well on such subjects as philosophy and archeology - and he wrote plays. His own accomplishments were staggering, too, as the composer of hundreds of works, large and small, in all conceivable forms - a dozen operas, incidental music to plays and to a film (as the first 'respectable' composer to grace the medium), sacred works, songs, chamber music, symphonies, concertos for violin, cello, and piano, military band music, transcriptions, arrangements, and cadenzas (for Beethoven and Mozart piano concertos).

Saint-Saëns played duets with Clara Schumann, formed a mutual admiration society with Franz Liszt (who called Saint-Saëns the greatest organist in the world), exchanged ideas with Rossini, Bizet, Gounod, ad inf. When I was young, several people of my acquaintance actually knew Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921), who actually worked with Hector Berlioz and heard his shattering works while the ink was still wet who attended the premiere in 1861 of the Paris version of Wagner's Tannhäuser and won that composer's praise for his piano virtuosity.

Carnival of the animals fossils song