The Essays of Jeffrey Dane
A Renaissance Man In France
.... by Jeffrey Dane - © 1999 Jeffrey Dane
He occupies a special place in the musical pantheon. He's considered by some
to be among the lesser of the greater composers and by others among the
greater of the lesser composers. Both views have merit: his position leans
toward the latter while retaining solid links with the former. Many of his
works remain in the standard repertoire of orchestras, singers and opera
companies, pianists, and other instrumentalists.
He was the first composer of note to write a film score and was one of the
earliest-born musicians to make records. The links in the chain that binds us
to the world's history generally, and to our musical history in particular,
seem larger and stronger when we hear his recordings: we're listening to the
playing of a man born only eight years after Beethoven's death, yet he lived
well into the 20th century. Aaron Copland, the Dean of American Composers,
shook hands with him at the home of the great educator Nadia Boulanger at 36
Rue Ballu in Paris.
His most popular symphony, for a solo instrument and orchestra, was completed
in 1886 (by which time Brahms, then the dominant musical figure in Austria,
had already written his own fourth and last symphony). The piece this man
composed was dedicated to Franz Liszt - the Leonard Bernstein of his day -
and was arguably the most important 19th-century French symphony after
Berlioz' Symphonie Fantastique nearly sixty years earlier. When he visited
America in 1906 for the Carnegie Hall, New York performances of the symphony,
he insisted on playing the solo part himself at the performances. A
now-famous photo, taken of him in profile at the instrument, shows him to
have had the appearance of a benevolent bird of prey, with a prominent Cyrano
de Bergerac-like nose "which preceded him by a quarter of an hour." Liszt
himself said this man was the greatest organist he'd ever heard.
On May 29, 1913 he was a contributor to the scandále at the premiére of
Stravinsky's ballet Le Sacre du Printemps at Paris' Théâtre des Champs
Elysées. As soon as the piece began - with a solo in the bassoon's higher
register - he stood up and exclaimed, "What kind of instrument is that?!" and
stormed out of the hall.
History is filled with composers whose musical facility even as children
enabled them to scale heights seemingly without effort. To say this man had
been a child prodigy would be an understatement of some magnitude. Writing
music came to him "as naturally as an apple tree produces apples." He
composed his first piano piece soon after his 3rd birthday, performed in
recital at age 11, studied at the Conservatoire de Paris, and was the
organist at the Church of the Madeleine for 20 years. His work is
characterized by unusual elegance, clearly articulated melodies and an
ordered musical structure and style, and his piano playing was facile,
amazingly rapid and clear. In these and other ways his musical facility
corresponds to that of Mozart. He despised trends toward modern music and
based much of his work on earlier composers, including Felix Mendelssohn,
with whom he has many parallels as a man of great versatility.
His interests were deep and wide and embraced philosophy, archeaology,
astronomy and other fields, and his writings encompassed poetry and essays on
musical and other subjects. A prolific letter writer, he achieved such renown
and personal prosperity that he was able to live a life of creative leisure
and travel, though he taught for four years at the Ecole Niedermeyer. His
extensive travels were often reflected in the titles of some of his works,
which show the influence of his stays in exotic places.
Those who studied with him may not have become important composers
themselves, but those who knew him became important teachers, one of whom was
Sigismond Stojowski, teacher of composer Alfred Newman, who was to win more
Academy Awards than any other composer in Hollywood.
One of his most popular works, first performed in 1875, was actually composed
as a private musical joke for friends and colleagues and he never allowed it
to be performed publicly during his lifetime. Conjecture may be fruitless but
it's still fascinating: we can only imagine what he might have thought if he
had known this piece would become emblematic of him in the minds of so many
listeners. Such is its popularity that one of its themes was heard in a
recent TV commercial.
Like Haydn before him, he had an unhappy marriage, and both of his sons died
in childhood. He died in Algeria on Beethoven's birthday in 1921.
The obvious, by its nature, often escapes our attention, so it may be worth
noting that just as a symphony is essentially a sonata for orchestra, Charles
Camille Saint-Saëns was as alive then as we are today.
Charles Camille Saint-Saëns. The photo of him at the organ was taken during his visit to the United States.
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