On Beethoven, Saint-Saens, and fossil-hunting

Synopsis

He was dubbed the French Beethoven, and like Ludwig van, was famous as both a composer and a pianist. Camille Saint-Saëns was born in Paris in 1835, and died on today’s date, at 86, in 1921.

The death date seems rather fitting, in a macabre sort of way, since December 16 is also the date we celebrate as Beethoven’s birthday. And imagine, if you will, the 10-year-old Saint-Saëns making his formal debut as a pianist at the Salle Pleyel in Paris, first performing a concerto by Beethoven, then, as an encore, offering to play any one of Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas — from memory!

Saint-Saëns’ keyboard skills were legendary. An early admirer of Wagner, he once amazed that composer by playing entire scores of his operas at sight. Berlioz, another admirer, once quipped he “knows everything but lacks inexperience.”

In addition to music, Saint-Saëns was fascinated by mathematics, astronomy, and the natural sciences. As a young boy he collected fossils that he dug out himself from the stone quarries at Meudon. Maybe that experience inspired him years later to add a movement titled Fossils to his Carnival of the Animals, a chamber work he wrote as a private joke in 1886. Saint-Saëns forbade its publication during his lifetime, and probably would have been appalled that this flippant work — and not his more serious symphonies or sonatas — has become his best-known and best-loved work.

Music Played in Today's Program

Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) Variations on a theme of Beethoven Philippe Corre and Edouard Exerjean, pianos Pierre Verany 790041

Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) Fossils, from Carnival of the Animals Martha Argerich, Nelson Freire, pianos; Markus Steckeler, xylophone; ensemble Philips 446557

On This Day

Births

• 1770 - German composer Ludwig van Beethoven, in Bonn. The date is not certain, but his birthday has been traditionally celebrated on this date. Beethoven was baptized the following day (Dec. 17, 1770).

• 1775 - French opera composer François Boieldieu, in Rouen

• 1847 - French composer (of Irish parentage) Augusta Holmès (Holmes), in Paris

• 1882 - Hungarian composer Zoltán Kódaly, in Kecskemét

• 1899 - British playwright and songwriter Sir Noel Coward, in Teddington (Middlesex)

• 1932 - Russian composer Rodion Shchedrin, in Moscow

Deaths

• 1921 - French composer and pianist Camille Saint-Saëns, 86, in Algiers

Premieres

• 1877 - Bruckner: Symphony No. 3 (second version), in Vienna, with the composer conducting

• 1893 - Dvořák: Symphony No. 9 (From the New World), at Carnegie Hall, by the New York Philharmonic, Anton Seidl conducting. This was the officia premiere (a public dress rehearsal had taken place the previous afternoon).

• 1894 - Emil von Reznicek: opera Donna Diana, in Prague

• 1921 - Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 3, by the Chicago Symphony conducted by Frederick Stock, with the composer as soloist

• 1938 - Copland: An Outdoor Overture, in New York City

• 1946 - Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 3, in Moscow, by the Beethoven Quartet

Others

• 1718 - J.S. Bach examines the organ at the Paulinerkirche in Leipzig

• 1944 - American bandleader and trombonist Glenn Miller, 40, dies in an air crash near England