SAINT-SAENS, BIZET, AND MAS

The latter tendencies of Galli, music, brin over the conres of any chauviniste tional suirit and are forcing their way with a neerity toward the blen ling of the wo vintages with their own, find typical rep: desic three musicians, one of whom is devi hing left a monument in "Carmen," at which will live as long as "Faust or the guenots"; and the other two of whom st sue active and brilliant careers, gaining lane each year. They have nobly further catholle spirit, which inspired the com.. geats of Gounod

I.

CHARLES CAMILLE SAINT-SAPNS, the pl the trio, was Paris-born, October 9, 1835 musician-like, indicated his remarkable c ment from the earliest years. He enter Conservatoire in 1848, and won the priz organ-playing and symphony composition, ú strange to say, he saw the Prix de Rome i: sucecssive competitions carried off by his inf In 1867 he wrote the Prize Cantats for the I. uational Exposition, and Berlioz pronounces one of the greatest musicians of the age-a, (* which Bülow ratified in 1873, after having 1

him read the score of Siegfried on the piano. He became a celebrity in Paris as organist and pianoplayer, and his chamber and orchestral music, his sonatas and masses, made him a great name among musicians, though he remained “caviare to the general." Indeed, no man could grasp a large measure of favor in France at that time unless as an opera composer, and it was here that the genius of SaintSaëns failed, though he made assiduous experiments. Perhaps there was something profound and austere in his nature which could not fit itself to the exigencies of dramatic music, especially that side of it which was the French vogue, in spite of a few magnificent successes in the nobler operatic school, such as "Faust" and " Mignon." "Le Princesse Jeune," produced June 12, 1872; "Le Timbre d'Argent," in 1877; "Samson et Delila " (though successful at Weimar, where it was first produced in 1877); "Étienne Marcel," in 1879; "Henri VIII," in 1883; "Proserpine," in 1887, and "Ascanio," in 1890-were "damned with faint praise," though "Samson et Delila" was honored. in 1892 by a place on the list of the Académie. All these works were admirably written and orchestrated, and marked by serious elevation of purpose. It may be that the future will offer the composer a late reparation; for what may not be expected of a Paris which now has begun to make an idol of Berlioz, which, after many years of indifference to "Carmen," now welcomes it with true

French effervescence, which takes the keenest apparent delight in the Wagner music drama once buried under volcanic abuse by critics and public? Aside from the music of the stage, however, SaintSaëns has received the full meed of his greatness as the most profound and accomplished of living French composers. As a writer of orchestral and chamber music his rank is pre-eminent even in other countries than his own. The criticism that he is not a great melodist scarcely tallies with the fact that he has written upward of fifty charming songs, which are household words in French and foreign music-rooms. Unlike Berlioz, of whose memory Saint-Saëns is a devout worshiper, he has drunk deeply from the fountains of the past, and knows all his great predecessors by heart from Bach to Wagner. Yet this eclectic study has in nowise impaired his own originality, but rather enriched it with a life more ripe and solid. Saint-Saëns has made frequent visits to England, Germany, Russia, and Italy, and has been received with a warmth attesting the cosmopolitan recognition of his genius, though his personality is said to be by no means genial or effusive, but rather disdainful of anything like a social following, a quality in which he is as un-Gallic as he is in the essential genre of his musical endowment. His prolific industry is shown in the fact that many years ago his opus numbers reached sixty-four, besides numerous unnumbered pieces.