Saint-Saëns, Camille 10/09/1835 - 12/16/1921

Camille Saint-Saens (1835-1921) was a French composer whose mother and great-aunt encouraged his early musical gifts. At the age of six he was already composing songs and piano pieces. He gave his first public concert in 1846 in the Salle Pleyel in Paris, his native city.

In 1852 he became organist at the Église Sainte Marie, and later at the Madeleine. This year also saw the beginning of his friendship with Franz Liszt, who would have a lasting musical influence on him.

His first and second symphonies, premiered in 1853 and 1857, were well received. From 1861-1865 he taught piano at the École Niedermeyer, where Fauré was among his pupils.

The boredom of academic life, however, drove him to the theater, where his early works Le Timbre d'Argent (1864-1865) and Samson et Dalila were premiered.

After the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 he set himself to rouse interest in the French public for a national instrumental music and grounded, with Romaine Bussine, the Société Nationale de Musique, in which young composers César Franck, Erneste Chausson, Édouard Lalo, Vincent d'Indy and Gabriel Fauré came together. His contributions to the new movement were the symphonic poems Le Rouet d'Omphale (1872), Phaeton (1873), Danse macabre (1874) and La Jeunesse d'Hercule (1877).