Camille Saint-Saens on Music and Musicians.

Clifton, Keith E.

Camille Saint-Saens on Music and Musicians. Edited and translated by Roger Nichols. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. [xii, 187 p. ISBN-13: 9780195320169. $29.95]

From Hector Berlioz's incisive concert reviews to the witty ruminations of Debussy's alter-ego Monsieur Croche, French composers have been astute observers of contemporary musical trends. And yet their contributions to music criticism are often overlooked in favor of German writers such as Robert Schumann, E.T.A. Hoffmann, and Theodor Adorno. One of the liveliest and most prolific essayists of the French fin-de-siecle was Camille Saint-Saens, remembered today mostly for Samson and Dalilah, Carnival of the Animals, and Danse macabre. History has not treated him kindly, in part because of changing tastes but also his self-professed conservatism. Railing as late as 1913 against "the mania for reform" (p. 55), Saint-Saens concluded his career with a series of sonatas that largely ignored developments in modern music as practiced by Debussy, Ravel, and Stravinsky.

Saint-Saens's traditionalist views, however, should not imply that he had nothing of value to say. Roger Nichols assembled a diverse collection drawn mostly from essays, reviews, and personal recollections. Of the thirty-eight selections in this compact book, sixteen are translated into English for the first time. The writings cover nearly four decades, ranging from an 1876 eyewitness assessment of the world premiere of Wagner's Ring to a 1912 critique of Saint-Saens's chief rival Massenet.

Organized into two tidy sections, the book opens with several broad essays on the nature of music itself. Topics include the role of music in French society, shifting artistic trends in Europe, and the challenges French composers faced in maintaining their national identity. Part two centers on individual composers and performers. Although I have great faith in the accuracy and reliability of Nichols's translations, it is regrettable that none of the French texts are included, if only for the pleasure of reading Saint-Saens's witty prose in its original language. Full source citations are included for each entry should readers wish to track them down.

Many of the selections reflect Saint-Saens's role as a composer who, to use Nichols's words, "believed in balance, in proportion" (p. vi). When writing about the value of art to society, Saint-Saens rejects a moralistic or programmatic view, writing simply that "the aim of Art is Art, and nothing else" (p. 15). He singles out for special disdain Italian vocal music and its supporters who only want to hear lyrical melodies. Stendahl's well-known Lives of Haydn, Mozart and Metastasio--described as "the bedside companion of the majority of critics"--is presented as a book "whose disastrous influence is still felt today" (pp. 16-17). His views on global music reflect a myopic colonialist bias when he flippantly describes the music of Africa as "childish and without interest" (p. 20), an ironic comment given his appropriation of exotic styles in works such as the fifth piano concerto. Saint-Saens is most convincing when he comes to the defense of French music, especially his reasoned argument for opera-comique as a French antidote to German operatic conventions.

Part Two opens with a measured appraisal of Meyerbeer, one of the most under-appreciated composers of the era. Although Saint-Saens appropriately criticizes Meyerbeer's "carelessness over prosody" (p. 59), he readily acknowledges his seminal importance to the history of opera. A lukewarm assessment of Rossini leads to two short articles on Berlioz, that "paradox made flesh" (p. 81). As with other writers, Saint-Saens criticizes Berlioz's experimentalism and fanatical devotion to Shakespeare while also praising his inventive orchestrations. In an enthusiastic assessment of Liszt, dubbed "one of the greatest composers of our time" (p. 88), Saint-Saens focuses on Liszt's creation of the symphonic poem and his innovations in sacred music. One wonders what opinion he had of Liszt's late works that hover between tonality and atonality, such as the 1881 Nuages gris.

Wagner is covered most extensively in a critical but respectful appraisal of Tristan and the Ring. Although clearly partial to Wagner's early music (as were most French composers of the time), he is offended by the cult-like reverence for the German master and his overuse of the leitmotifconcept. The book's longest selection focuses on Gounod, a composer whose musical legacy, like that of Saint-Saens, rests on a small number of works. Starting with an appreciation of Faust and Romeo et Juliette, Saint-Saens discusses Gounod's sacred music in detail, especially the Messe de Saint-Cecile and the oratorio Redemption. The book concludes with two articles in defense of Offenbach, a concise appreciation of Bizet, a remembrance of Pauline Viardot (the first Dalilah), and "Four Poems to Friends" written in honor of Gabriel Faure, Viardot, and composer Augusta Holmes. For all their charm, the poems clearly demonstrate that Saint-Saens's best work centered on music and prose.

Whatever opinion one may hold of Saint-Saens and his music, there can be no doubt that Nichols's collection is an important and overdue addition to the generally slim literature on the composer. Beyond the essays themselves, Nichols provides numerous footnotes that complement the text and serve to illuminate the significance of overlooked musical figures and events. On the minus side, neither a bibliography nor suggestions for further reading are provided, and footnotes are left mostly undocumented. Nichols allows Saint-Saens to speak for himself by providing a broad and representative sampling of his critical writing without any claim at comprehensiveness. His opinions on early twentieth century composers such as Debussy, amply documented in other sources, are omitted entirely. But these are minor quibbles. Highly recommended for all academic music libraries, Camille Saint-Saens provides an engaging snapshot of the rich, eclectic, and partisan views of one of the most significant and underappreciated French composers of late Romanticism.

Keith E. Clifton

Central Michigan University