Camille Saint-Saëns was something of an anomaly among
French composers of the nineteenth century in that he
wrote in virtually all genres, including opera,
symphonies, concertos, songs, sacred and secular choral
music, solo piano, and chamber music. He was generally
not a pioneer, though he did help to revive some
earlier and largely forgotten dance forms, like the
bourée and gavotte. He was a conservative who wrote
many popular scores scattered throughout the various
genres: the Piano Concert...(+)
Camille Saint-Saëns was something of an anomaly among
French composers of the nineteenth century in that he
wrote in virtually all genres, including opera,
symphonies, concertos, songs, sacred and secular choral
music, solo piano, and chamber music. He was generally
not a pioneer, though he did help to revive some
earlier and largely forgotten dance forms, like the
bourée and gavotte. He was a conservative who wrote
many popular scores scattered throughout the various
genres: the Piano Concerto No. 2, Symphony No. 3
("Organ"), the symphonic poem Danse macabre, the opera
Samson et Dalila, and probably his most widely
performed work, The Carnival of The Animals. While he
remained a composer closely tied to tradition and
traditional forms in his later years, he did develop a
more arid style, less colorful and, in the end, less
appealing. He was also a poet and playwright of some
distinction.
Saint-Saëns was born in Paris on October 9, 1835. He
was one of the most precocious musicians ever,
beginning piano lessons with his aunt at two-and-a-half
and composing his first work at three. At age seven he
studied composition with Pierre Maledin. When he was
ten, he gave a concert that included Beethoven's Third
Piano Concerto, Mozart's B flat Concerto, K. 460, along
with works by Bach, Handel, and Hummel. In his academic
studies, he displayed the same genius, learning
languages and advanced mathematics with ease and
celerity. He would also develop keen, lifelong
interests in geology and astronomy.
Curiously, after 1890, Saint-Saëns' music was regarded
with some condescension in his homeland, while in
England and the United States he was hailed as France's
greatest living composer well into the twentieth
century. Saint-Saëns experienced an especially
triumphant concert tour when he visited the U.S. in
1915. In the last two decades of his life, he remained
attached to his dogs and was largely a loner. He died
in Algeria on December 16, 1921.
Like all composers born in the nineteenth century,
Saint-Saëns yielded to the exhilaration of the waltz
for piano: five unpublished waltzes from the 1840s,
Menuet et Valse (1872), Étude en forme de valse op.52
no.6 (1877), the Valse from the Albumop.72 (1884),
Valse canariote (1890), Valse mignonne (1896), Valse
nonchalante (1898), Valse langoureuse (1903) and Valse
gaie (1912). Saint-Saëns dedicated the Valse gaie to
Émile Hoskier, consul general of Denmark in France and
banker to the composer (who had taught Hoskier’s
daughter’s the piano). On 11 November 1912 he
announced to the publisher Durand: ‘I have started
writing a little waltz to be dedicated to M. Hoskier,
who has been asking me to do so for years.’ A week
later, the piece was apparently finished: ‘Hoskier is
rejoicing in the number of people who will envy him.
Perhaps that isn’t very charitable of him, but it is
very natural.’ On 16 January 1913 the dedicatee
expressed his warm thanks to Saint-Saëns, adding:
‘It would seem that Durand has already sold piles of
the piece, and all my friends talk to me about it. I
don’t think I’ll ever manage to play it; I’m too
old, my fingers aren’t much use any more, and then
the composition is very difficult. Luckily, my
daughter, your pupil, is staying with me; she plays it
admirably, to perfection, with a lightness and finesse
you cannot imagine.’ Mlle Hoskier must have been a
pianist of the front rank to be able to perform this
swirling waltz, bristling with difficulties (parallel
thirds in a single hand, arpeggios, octaves, repeated
notes), which Georges Servières admired for its
elegance and the diversity of its ideas.
Source: Allmusic
(http://www.allmusic.com/artist/camille-saint-sa%C3%ABn
s-mn0000688311/biography).
Although originally composed for piano, I created this
interpretation of the "Valse Gaie" in Bb Major (Op.
139) for String Quartet (2 Violins, Viola & Cello).
