“I like good company, but I like hard work still better.” Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921)
Saint-Saëns was an inexhaustible French pianist, organist and composer, responsible for the infamous The Carnival of Animals. Browse our sheet music and scores, and have a carnival with Camille today!
Camille Saint-Saëns was born in Paris on October the 9th, 1835, and since his father died a few months later, he was raised by his mother and his great-aunt, who was a pianist. Camille’s musical talents were clear from an early age, he took his first piano lessons with his great aunt, and he fell in love with the organ at the very first note. With composition, he also started young, and was only 15 years old when he completed his first symphony (Symphony in A major), which is now very rarely performed.
After completing his studies in piano, organ and composition at the Paris Conservatoire, he first worked as an organist, but he gave up his position in 1877, to pursue his love of composition.
As he became increasingly famous, he took more trips within Europe, and to America, as well as to Africa, and it was on this final trip that he died on December 16, 1921 in Algiers, at the age of 86.
Only a few pieces from Camille Saint-Saëns’ great work have made it into the modern concert and stage repertoire. About half of his work is made up of virtually forgotten vocal pieces, such as cantatas, songs with piano, and choral works. However, The Christmas Oratorio and his opera Samson and Dalilah are extremely popular today.
Among his instrumental works, the Piano Concertos by Saint-Saëns and the Saint-Saëns Cello Concerto are regularly featured in the modern concert repertoire. The Saint-Saëns Piano Works and the Organ Works by Saint-Saëns, which cover all difficulty levels, are often used by musicians as part of their professional training and development. A work of note is the Symphony No.3 by Saint-Saëns. In this ’organ symphony’, the composer uses the ’queen of instruments’ to create a special timbre within the orchestra.
One of the most famous works by Camille Saint-Saëns is the The Carnival of Animals, with which he enjoyed great success, just a few years before his death.
At first, Saint-Saëns’ musical ideas were regarded as ’revolutionary’, and were initially very successful abroad, before gaining popularity at home. It was not, however, until the late 1880s, that he was considered an established force within the classic music world. At the turn of the century, a new musical avant-garde arrived, with Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel and Igor Stravinsky, and Saint-Saëns was increasingly over-looked, and his fame dwindled, as his music was now widely considered ’old-fashioned’.
Throughout his life, Saint-Saëns was an advocate for French traditional and national music, and along with César Franck, he was co-founder of the ’Société Nationale de Musique’, which offered young French composers a pathway into the music world. He also spend his life fighting against the German influence on French music, especially that of Richard Wagner and Arnold Schönberg.
for: Concert band
Score
Item no.: 1067797
for: Fanfare and Horn[s]
Score
Item no.: 875010
for: Piano
Single edition
Item no.: 933420
for: Organ
Music score
Item no.: 616502
for: Brass band
Item no.: 1705383
for: Voice, piano
Music score
Item no.: 644761
for: Voice, piano
Music score
Item no.: 634627
for: Voice, piano
Music score
Item no.: 878014
for: Voice, piano
Music score
Item no.: 866630
for: Piano
Music score
Item no.: 889463
for: Voice, piano
Music score
Item no.: 922542
for: Voice, piano
Music score
Item no.: 880943
for: Voice, piano
Music score
Item no.: 892044
for: Mixed choir (SAB), piano
Choir score
Item no.: 913667
for: Voice, piano
Music score
Item no.: 866117
for: Voice, piano
Music score
Item no.: 877276
for: Voice, piano
Music score
Item no.: 876026
for: Voice, piano
Music score
Item no.: 921202
for: Voice, piano
Music score
Item no.: 862298
for: Voice (soprano)
Score
Item no.: 857502
for: Piano
Music score
Item no.: 870986
for: Violin, piano
Piano score, solo part
Item no.: 922917
for: Violin, piano
Piano score, solo part
Item no.: 884929
for: Piano
Music score
Item no.: 887105
for: Piano 4 hands
Score
Item no.: 867080
for: Choir
Score
Item no.: 874605
for: Choir
Score
Item no.: 891622
for: Choir a Cappella
Score
Item no.: 882421
for: Choir
Score
Item no.: 872578
for: Choir a Cappella
Einzelstimme
Item no.: 866537
Lyric book
Item no.: 334524
Symphonic poem
after a poem by Henri Cazalis
Bärenreiter Urtext
for: Violin, orchestra
Double bass (orchestral part)
Item no.: 692992
for: Concert band
Score, Parts
Item no.: 1096571
for: Flute, piano
Score, part
Item no.: 1650783
for: Chamber ensemble
Viola (orchestral part)
Item no.: 1689627
Symphonic poem
after a poem by Henri Cazalis
Bärenreiter Urtext
for: Violin, orchestra
Violin 1 (orchestral part)
Item no.: 692988
for: String orchestra
Score
Item no.: 889545
for: Symphonic orchestra
Double bass (orchestral part)
Item no.: 673901
for: 2 pianos
2 music scores
Item no.: 161417
for: Concert band
Conductors part
Item no.: 1096108
for: Symphonic orchestra
Set of parts
Item no.: 1201687
for: Horn, orchestra
Set of parts
Item no.: 1201714
Bärenreiter Urtext
for: Soloist (soprano), mixed choir (SATB), 4 saxophones (SATBar), string orchestra, organ
Violin 1 (orchestral part)
Item no.: 1582660
for: Organ
Music score
Item no.: 1200827
à Blidah
for: Flute, guitar
Music score
Item no.: 1020666
Buch
Item no.: 249591
for: Mixed choir (SATB), organ
Item no.: 553083
for: Horn (E-flat/F), concert band
Score, Parts
Item no.: 349042