Camille Saint-Saëns

Organist of the Madeleine in Paris for twenty years, from 1857, Camille Saint-Saëns improvised there in a manner that drew Liszt's admiration — the same musician had given his first public piano recital at ten and trained at the Conservatoire as a pianist and organist. In 1871 he was among the founders of the Société Nationale de Musique, formed to get new French instrumental music played. His works include the Third Symphony with organ, the opera Samson et Dalila, the Second and Fifth Piano Concertos, the First Cello Concerto, the Third Violin Concerto, Danse macabre, and The Carnival of the Animals, which he refused to publish in full in his lifetime, allowing only The Swan to appear. In 1908 he wrote the score for L'Assassinat du duc de Guise. He also wrote, copiously, on music, science and philosophy. He gave the first performance of each of his five piano concertos; the fourth, premiered in 1875, carries a dedication to Anton Door of the Vienna Conservatory. The fifth he drafted in three weeks in a Cairo hotel in 1896 and introduced at the Salle Pleyel on 2 June that year, in a programme shared with Pablo Sarasate that marked fifty years since his first appearance in the hall, and the printed score went to Louis Diémer.