Camille Saint-Saëns

Charles Camille Saint-Saëns was a French composer, organ virtuoso, pianist, and intellectual whose career spanned from the Romantic era to the modern age. A child prodigy compared to Mozart, he possessed encyclopedic musical knowledge, serving as titular organist at the Church of the Madeleine in Paris, where Franz Liszt hailed him as the greatest organist in the world.

Saint-Saëns was a tireless champion of French symphonic music, co-founding the Société Nationale de Musique. His works are characterized by elegant craftsmanship, sparkling orchestration, and melodic warmth, exemplified by his Symphony No. 3 ('Organ'), the opera Samson and Delilah, and his whimsical suite The Carnival of the Animals (featuring 'The Swan').