Beskrivelse
Quoting extensively from his letters, Stephen Studd presents an accurate and balanced account of Saint-Saens’s life and work, placing him in the context of nineteenth-century French music. The child prodigy became the eternal scholar who, besides being a prolific composer, was also one of the greatest organists of his day, a touring pianist of awesome technique, the producer of scholarly editions of other composers works, a contributor to a variety of newspapers and journals, a writer on literature, philosophy and the sciences – especially astronomy – as well as music, a poet and a playwright, and an inveterate traveller Feted by royalty and a member of the Legion d’Honneur, he had the rare distinction – for a musician – of being alive to see the unveiling of a statue of himself. The often violent extremes of opinion which he aroused in others created a legacy of prejudices and assumptions which has for three-quarters of a century remained largely unchallenged and has militated against a more sober assessment of his music and its place in musical history. Stephen Studd’s biography offers just such an assessment. Together with an extensive bibliography, appendices with selections from the composer’s essays and poetry, and an up-to-date discography of the ever-growing number of recordings, this biography is much needed and timely.
