Camille Saint-Saëns: Écrits sur la Musique et les Musiciens 1870–1921 ed. by Marie-Gabrielle Soret

Abstract

Reviewed by: Camille Saint-Saëns: Écrits sur la Musique et les Musiciens 1870–1921 ed. by Marie-Gabrielle Soret Michael Strasser Camille Saint-Saëns: Écrits sur la Musique et les Musiciens 1870–1921. Edited by Marie-Gabrielle Soret. (MusicologieS.) Paris: Librarie Philosophique J. Vrin, 2012. [1160p. ISBN 978-2-7116-2448-5. €52] For much of the twentieth century, the musical history of fin-de-siècle France was rendered in relatively simplistic terms, with the narrative distorted by the dominating presence of Debussy and his impact on the course of twentieth-century music. In recent decades, however, scholars have begun to examine the history of this fascinating period with fresh eyes, providing a more nuanced and detailed picture of one of the most intriguing and important chapters in French musical history. No composer has benefited more from this reexamination than Camille Saint-Saëns, who was by far the most popular and well-known French composer of the period between the Franco-Prussian War and World War I. Renowned as one of the preeminent pianists of his time, Saint-Saëns’s compositions were programmed much more often than those of any other contemporary French composer, both at home and abroad; and through his articles, reviews, and open letters, he came to be seen as one of the dominant voices in the many debates roiling the waters of French musical life during the decades surrounding the turn of the twentieth century. Renewed interest in Saint-Saëns and his role in French music has led to the appearance of several new biographies in the last fifteen years, a soon-to-be-completed three-volume catalogue of his works, edited by Sabina Ratner, and a recently-published collection of letters written to him by other composers. The biographies were able to draw upon a wealth of material contained in the composer’s numerous writings, which appeared not only in the important Parisian newspapers and the leading music and artistic journals, but also in regional papers and other less-accessible publications. Yet, except for two relatively slim volumes (Yves Gerard, ed. Saint-Saëns: Regards sur mes contemporains [Arles: Editions Bernard Coutaz, 1990], and Roger Nichols, ed. and trans. Camille Saint-Saëns on Music and Musicians [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008]), none of these have appeared in print, and modern researchers seeking to [End Page 73] gain insight into the composer’s ideas and opinions have often had to ferret out individual articles through a laborious examination of dozens of individual publications, often with no clue as to what article or review might contain useful information. This lacuna has now been filled by Marie-Gabrielle Soret’s extremely useful compilation and edition of most of the composer’s writings on music. Organised chronologically, these writings offer up a gold mine of information, observations, and insight into the music and musical life of fin-se-siècle France, yet their value is increased immeasurably by the additional information and perspective that Soret provides through her analytical overview of the material. The book opens with an introductory essay that offers a brief but perceptive examination of Saint-Saëns’s reputation and character as well as some thoughts on the motivations behind his considerable literary output and its importance to any true understanding of the man and his times. Soret argues that through his writings Saint-Saëns wished to express, promote, and defend his artistic ideas, and that he considered his literary endeavors to be an important adjunct to his musical composition. Following this introduction comes a discussion of the problems associated with compiling the edition and an examination from a variety of angles of Saint-Saëns’s literary output. Soret explains that she built upon the work of an early biographer, Jean Bonnerot, who had served as Saint-Saëns’s secretary from 1910 to 1921 and compiled a list of the composer’s most important writings. In an effort to expand this to a comprehensive list, she examined dozens of publications. But there were limitations. She did not undertake a systematic search of the provincial French press for two reasons: many of the composer’s writings...