memories

Saint-Saëns was 51 when he produced two of his most famous works, The Carnival of the Animals and the Symphony No. 3 ‘Organ’, which was dedicated to Liszt, who died later that year. The Organ Symphony was famously used as the main theme in the 1995 film Babe and its sequel, Babe: Pig in the City Saint- Saëns was said to be "unequalled on the organ", and almost without competition on the piano. However his performance style was described as ‘restrained, subtle and cool’. He was one of the first pianists to experiment with recordings, and was in fact the earliest-born pianist to ever make a recording of his work. cr: classicfm

The Carnival of the Animals, composed in 1886, was originally written as a joke and Saint-Saëns worried that it might damage his reputation. He banned complete performances and only allowed one movement, The Swan, to be published while he was alive. The piece became acclaimed worldwide as The Dying Swan after 1905 when it was choreographed for legendary ballerina Anna Pavlova. She performed the piece about 4,000 times. Towards the end of his life, Saint-Saëns undertook a triumphant tour of America but gradually found that his style of composition was no longer regarded as being fashionable by the Parisian chattering classes. He died in Algiers in 1921. He is buried in the same Paris cemetery as his fellow composers Chabrier and Auric, as well as Cesar Franck. But today, Saint-Saëns' music is performed and loved the world over. cr: classicfm

Born in Paris in 1835, Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns was raised by his widowed mother and her aunt who introduced the young Camille to the piano and gave him his first lessons. The boy was a true prodigy, demonstrating perfect pitch at the age of two. He gave his first public concert at five, accompanying a Beethoven violin sonata on the piano. The composer’s formidable intellect was not limited to music. He had a profound interest in - and knowledge of - geology, botany, butterflies, and maths. He enjoyed discussions with Europe's finest scientists and wrote numerous academic articles about acoustics. cr: classicfm

Poplars Near Nuenen Van Gogh attached a small drawing of this painting to a letter to his brother Theo, to show him what he had made. Based on this, the painting has been dated October 1884. At the same time there are indications that the painting was reworked two years later, in 1886, with brighter colours. In that year, Van Gogh was in Paris and, under the influence of the impressionists, he started working with lighter colours. It is not easy to determine which strokes of paint were made in the Netherlands and which were added in France. The blue stripes which stand out against the sky and the light touches in the trees seem to have been added in France.

"Clair De Lune" by Johan Barthold Jongkind