Ave maria de camille st saens biography

It is a perfect example of how a traditional text can be set to music in a way that is both beautiful and emotionally powerful. Whether this is your first time auditioning or your 50th, there are things that you need to…. Pantomime is an art that has been around for centuries. Pantomime is a form of acting that…. First Time Doing Panto. Your email address will not be published.

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Skip to content. Previous Previous. Next Continue. His First , in D , in conventional three-movement form, is not well known, but the Second, in G minor is one of his most popular works. The composer experimented with form in this piece, replacing the customary sonata form first movement with a more discursive structure, opening with a solemn cadenza.

The scherzo second movement and presto finale are in such contrast with the opening that the pianist Zygmunt Stojowski commented that the work "begins like Bach and ends like Offenbach". It is in two movements, each comprising two identifiable sub-sections, and maintains a thematic unity not found in the composer's other piano concertos.

The work is known as the "Egyptian" concerto; it was written while the composer was wintering in Luxor , and incorporates a tune he heard Nile boatmen singing. The First Cello Concerto , in A minor is a serious although animated work, in a single continuous movement with an unusually turbulent first section. It is among the most popular concertos in the cello repertory, much favoured by Pablo Casals and later players.

There are three violin concertos; the first to be composed dates from but was not published until , as the composer's Second , in C major. It is a short work, its single bar movement lasting less than a quarter of an hour. It changes from a wistful and tense opening to a swaggering main theme, described as faintly sinister by the critic Gerald Larner, who goes on, "After a multi-stopped cadenza During the composer's lifetime his Henry VIII became a repertory piece; since his death only Samson et Dalila has been regularly staged, although according to Schonberg, Ascanio is considered by experts to be a much finer work.

There is a certain emotional dryness; invention is sometimes thin, but the workmanship is impeccable. From Meyerbeer he drew the effective use of the chorus in the action of a piece; [ ] for Henry VIII he included Tudor music he had researched in London; [ ] in La princesse jaune he used an oriental pentatonic scale; [ ] from Wagner he derived the use of leitmotifs , which, like Massenet, he used sparingly.

He was highly sensitive to word setting, and told the young composer Lili Boulanger that to write songs effectively musical talent was not enough: "you must study the French language in depth; it is indispensable.

Ave maria de camille st saens biography

He is not known even to have contemplated writing one. Some of the earlier works were written to be played on either the harmonium or the organ, and a few were primarily intended for the former. One of the first of his major works in the genre was the Piano Quintet It is a straightforward, confident piece, in a conventional structure with lively outer movements and a central movement containing two slow themes, one chorale-like and the other cantabile.

It is a serious work, in which the main melodic material is sustained by the cello over a virtuoso piano accompaniment. The woodwind sonatas are among the composer's last works and part of his efforts to expand the repertoire for instruments for which hardly any solo parts were written, as he confided to his friend Jean Chantavoine in a letter dated to 15 April "At the moment I am concentrating my last reserves on giving rarely considered instruments the chance to be heard.

For Gallois the Clarinet Sonata is the most important of the three: he calls it "a masterpiece full of impishness, elegance and discreet lyricism" amounting to "a summary of the rest". The same commentator calls the Bassoon Sonata "a model of transparency, vitality and lightness", containing humorous touches but also moments of peaceful contemplation.

Grove rates it as "his most brilliant comic work, parodying Offenbach, Berlioz, Mendelssohn, Rossini, his own Danse macabre and several popular tunes". Also listed are an early Mass, collections of organ music, and choral songs. With the exception of Samson et Dalila the operas have been sparsely represented on disc. In its obituary notice, The Times commented:.

The death of M. He had maintained so vigorous a vitality and kept in such close touch with present-day activities that, though it had become customary to speak of him as the doyen of French composers, it was easy to forget the place he actually took in musical chronology. He held a position in his own country's music certain aspects of which may be fitly compared with each of those masters in their own spheres.

The critic Henry Colles , wrote, a few days after the composer's death:. All his greatest contemporaries did. Brahms, Tchaikovsky, and even Franck, were ready to sacrifice everything for the end each wanted to reach, to drown in the attempt to get there if necessary. Rather, he defended the French tradition that threatened to be engulfed by Wagnerian influences and created the environment that nourished his successors".

Since the composer's death writers sympathetic to his music have expressed regret that he is known by the musical public for only a handful of his scores such as The Carnival of the Animals , the Second Piano Concerto, the Third Violin Concerto, the Organ Symphony, Samson et Dalila , Danse macabre and the Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso.

Among his large output, Nicholas singles out the Requiem, the Christmas Oratorio , the ballet Javotte , the Piano Quartet , the Septet for trumpet, piano and strings, and the First Violin Sonata as neglected masterpieces. I've played all his cello music and there isn't one bad piece. His works are rewarding in every way. And he's an endlessly fascinating figure.

Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read Edit View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikimedia Commons Wikiquote Wikidata item. French composer, organist, conductor and pianist — Life [ edit ]. Early life [ edit ]. Early career [ edit ]. From Samson and Delilah. Sung by Enrico Caruso in Problems playing this file?

See media help. Music [ edit ]. Orchestral works [ edit ]. Concertante works [ edit ]. Operas [ edit ]. Other vocal music [ edit ]. Solo keyboard [ edit ]. Chamber [ edit ]. Sabina Teller Ratner, [ ]. Sonata for bassoon with piano accompaniment Op. Problems playing these files? Recordings [ edit ]. Honours and reputation [ edit ]. See also [ edit ].

Notes, references and sources [ edit ]. Notes [ edit ]. Take me as I am. The clarinet, the cor anglais and the bassoon remain; their turn will come soon. References [ edit ]. Lexico UK English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on 26 August Retrieved 17 May Sources [ edit ]. Anderson, Keith Munich: Naxos. OCLC Bellaigue, Camille Souvenirs de musique et de musiciens in French.

Paris: Nouvelle Librairie Nationale. Berlioz, Hector Hugh Macdonald ed. Berlioz, Selected Letters. Roger Nichols trans. London: Faber and Faber. ISBN Blyth, Alan Opera on CD. London: Kyle Cathie. Branger, Jean-Christophe In Jann Passler ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Canarina, John Chisholm, Hugh , ed. Cambridge University Press.

Crichton, Ronald []. In Amanda Holden ed. The Penguin Opera Guide. London: Penguin Books. Deruchie, Andrew Duchen, Jessica London: Phaidon. Duchesneau, Michel Fauser, Annegret Fuller Maitland, J A London: Macmillan. Gallois, Jean Harding, James London: Chapman and Hall. Herter, Joseph Zygmunt Stojowski. Los Angeles: Figueroa Press. Huebner, Steven Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Ivry, Benjamin Maurice Ravel: A Life. New York: Welcome Rain. Jones, J Barrie London: B T Batsford. Jones, Timothy French Music Since Berlioz. Aldershot and Burlington: Ashgate. Kater, Michael H Kelly, Thomas Forrest First Nights: Five Musical Premieres. New Haven: Yale University Press.