Tag: Saint-Saens

  • Saint-Saëns defending virtuosity

    It is virtuosity itself that I want to defend. It is the source of the picturesque in music, it gives the artist wings with whose help he escapes platitudes and the everyday. The conquered difficulty is in itself a beautiful thing. Theódphile Gautier, in Émaux et camées, considered this issue in immortal verses. . .…

  • Practice slowly

    “One must practice slowly, then more slowly and finally slowly.” – Camille Saint-Saëns Cited in: The Piano Quarterly, 1974, p. 24.

  • Saint-Saëns on composing

    “I produce music as an apple tree produces apples.” — Camille Saint-Saëns Musical Heritage Review. Musical Heritage Society, volume 1, issues 13-18, p.47.

  • Saint-Saëns on the art of music

    The artist who does not feel completely satisfied by elegant lines, by harmonious colours, and by a beautiful succession of chords does not understand the art of music. — Camille Saint-Saëns Cited in Milton Cross David Ewan, Encyclopedia of Great Composers and Their Music, volume 2. Double Day, 1969, p.819.

  • Saint-Saens on Bach and Mozart

    “What gives Sebastian Bach and Mozart a place apart is that these two great expressive composers never sacrificed form to expression. As high as their expression may soar, their musical form remains supreme and all-sufficient.” – Camille Saint-Saëns, from a letter to Camille Bellaigue, 1907 Cited in: Fisk, Josiah (ed.) (1997) Composers On Music: Eight…