Many of us know Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) thanks to his greatest hits, “The Swan”, La Symphonie Pour Orgue and La Danse Macabre. The latter of which is very gripping and exists in many forms: orchestral, vocal, or on the piano in a frenzied transcription, here by Vladimir Horowitz. You need at least four arms and twenty fingers to get through it. Either that or Saint-Saëns’ talent, a child prodigy who gave his first recital at the age of eleven and didn’t stop playing until his death at the Hôtel de l’Oasis in Algiers.
His threefold personality as the most famous organist of the French Second Empire, friend and teacher to a whole generation (Bizet, Fauré, Liszt) and colonial propagandist for the French Third Republic, hides a fourth, more secret one. Under the pseudonym Charles Sanois (and with a false passport) he lived in the Canary Islands, Algeria, Egypt, the Americas and South East Asia, fleeing the cumbersome weight of fame, as well as living out his homosexuality far from prying eyes. Having suffered through the ordeals of a failed marriage, at the age of 55 he gave himself a new lease of life. His endless moving reminds us of modern day stars, hounded by the paparazzi. Perhaps it is no surprise, therefore, that “Aquarium”, the first song on this playlist, is the theme song of the Cannes Film Festival.
I enjoyed constructing an imaginary journey in the company of this contemporary of Jules Verne, who twice circumnavigated the globe with his piano. In the same way as Marcel Proust did with his imagined Vinteuil Sonata (which was inspired by Saint-Saëns) I have superimposed onto this list the languor of the Belle Époque’s hot greenhouses, the sensuality of various temptresses, the exoticism of the colonial empire and these cathedrals of sound, alongside a few juicy moments worthy of a Hollywood epic. Saint-Saëns? A real carnival, truly...
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