Greatest composer who was not a genius?

[glindhot]

Saint Saëns, someone said, was "The greatest composer who was not a genius."

Who said that?

Do you agree, or who do you think it was?

[Sid]

I'm not sure who said it, but I know that (from an early age) Saint-Saens could do amazing things like play any of the 32 Beethoven sonatas from memory. That became his party trick. He was a child prodigy, and the great white hope of French music. I am not a huge fan of Saint-Saens, I saw his Organ Symphony as a teenager and thought it was awesome, but now I think it's cliched and boring. Tastes change (& this says more about me than the composer). I think he wrote some pretty enjoyable music (like the fine piano concertos), and even some light and witty (very French) stuff like the Carnival of the Animals. Early on, he was associated with progressive tendencies and was a good friend of Liszt, but later he became very conservative, booing at the premiere of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. Edgard Varese was a student of his, and they had a pretty uneasy relationship.

[Scarpia]

I'm not sure who said it, but I know that (from an early age) Saint-Saens could do amazing things like play any of the 32 Beethoven sonatas from memory. That became his party trick. He was a child prodigy, and the great white hope of French music. I am not a huge fan of Saint-Saens, I saw his Organ Symphony as a teenager and thought it was awesome, but now I think it's cliched and boring. Tastes change (& this says more about me than the composer). I think he wrote some pretty enjoyable music (like the fine piano concertos), and even some light and witty (very French) stuff like the Carnival of the Animals. Early on, he was associated with progressive tendencies and was a good friend of Liszt, but later he became very conservative, booing at the premiere of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. Edgard Varese was a student of his, and they had a pretty uneasy relationship.

The organ symphony does not interest me.  I've become more interested in Saint-Saen's chamber music as time has gone on.

[vandermolen]

I think that Tchaikovsky said something similar about Rimsky-Korsakov.

[karlhenning]

I'm not sure who said it, but I know that (from an early age) Saint-Saens could do amazing things like play any of the 32 Beethoven sonatas from memory. That became his party trick. He was a child prodigy, and the great white hope of French music. I am not a huge fan of Saint-Saens, I saw his Organ Symphony as a teenager and thought it was awesome, but now I think it's cliched and boring. Tastes change (& this says more about me than the composer). I think he wrote some pretty enjoyable music (like the fine piano concertos), and even some light and witty (very French) stuff like the Carnival of the Animals. Early on, he was associated with progressive tendencies and was a good friend of Liszt, but later he became very conservative, booing at the premiere of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. Edgard Varese was a student of his, and they had a pretty uneasy relationship.

My trajectory with the Organ Symphony is the reverse of yours:  When I first heard it, I thought it tedious.  Now, I really like a great deal of Saint-Saëns's music, very much, especially the piano concerti.

Now, while you are certainly at perfect liberty to dislike whataver composers you choose, for whatever reasons may please you, you realize that your comment viz. the Rite première is irrelevant at best, and ad hominem at about worst?  You've taken a dislike (or 'confirmed' a dislike you've already taken) to Saint-Saëns because you like the Rite, and he booed it.  (I like both Saint-Saëns & Stravinsky, and I have no particular problem with this incident.)  Have you considered that, just maybe, he wasn't booing the music?  Reports of the occasion speak of (among other things) the orchestra being insufficiently rehearsed, of the choreography being quite a departure from what people were accustomed to, of poor coordination between the dancers and the pit.  There was, in short, no lack of things to be dissatisfied with in the spectacle.

[CD]

I've also heard that he simply walked out once he heard the opening bassoon line. Who knows what is apocryphal and what isn't?

[karlhenning]

Maybe he thought it was a saxophone. ; )

[CD]

And anyway, (at the risk of going down that route again) what is a genius? Someone who is great by dint of luck instead of hard work and study?

[karlhenning]

[Josquin des Prez]

And anyway, (at the risk of going down that route again) what is a genius? Someone who is great by dint of luck instead of hard work and study?

A work of genius is that which an average person could never be able to produce no matter how gifted they were, or how hard they worked and studied.

[The new erato]

A tricky question. Like discussing who is the biggest midget.

[Ten thumbs]

A work of genius is that which an average person could never be able to produce no matter how gifted they were, or how hard they worked and studied.

This is how I look at it too but none of the composers of genius who created them are to be mentioned in this thread!

[Saul]

I think everyone is a genius waiting to be discovered. People have the potential to do great things. Those who do get this chance are recognized as Geniuses, those who do not, are still waiting to find their inner genius.

[Sid]

Yesterday I just happened to pick up a recording of Saint-Saens' Carnival of the Animals (coupled with Prokofiev's Peter & the wolf - what else?). I had never heard the narrated version before & it's quite witty, the rhymes fit the music well. I'm looking forward to seeing the chamber version of this performed live (I don't think there'll be a narrator, I would love that, but it will still be good to see the purely instrumental version, too). I think that this work is unique for some of the novel textures, colours and sounds that Saint-Saens uses (I especialy like aquariums). The work was supressed until after his death, he didn't want it to eclipse his other more serious works. Saint-Saens may not be my favourite composer, but I still enjoy some of his works.

& composers can be cruel to eachother. Eg. Rimsky Korsakov said of his pupil Arensky that he would quickly be forgotten.

[jochanaan]

Ironically, by all reports, Saint-Saëns WAS a genius, and not just in music but in a number of sciences and philosophy--one of those brilliant people adept in many fields.

Sid, the "chamber version" of Carnival is simply the written version performed with one string player per part.  I feel this is the best way to play it; Saint-Saëns never intended it to be done with a 60+ string section.

BTW, Stravinsky himself says that Saint-Saëns was present at the first concert performance of Le Sacre, not at the premiere.

[CD]

This is how I look at it too but none of the composers of genius who created them are to be mentioned in this thread!

Short shrift for Fanny, then.

[Josquin des Prez]

Ironically, by all reports, Saint-Saëns WAS a genius, and not just in music but in a number of sciences and philosophy--one of those brilliant people adept in many fields.

Obviously, you still don't understand what a genius is.

[Guido]

Obviously, you still don't understand what a genius is.

No, he just doesn't share your rather idiosyncratic definition of what a genius is. It's fine to decide your own meanings for words, but don't expect other people to have ay idea what you're talking about.

[Josquin des Prez]

No, he just doesn't share your rather idiosyncratic definition of what a genius is. It's fine to decide your own meanings for words, but don't expect other people to have ay idea what you're talking about.

Except my understanding of genius is modeled after the same definition used since ages past in western society as far back as ancient Greece. Of course, the use of the word "genius" was introduced in the 19th century, but the idea was always present and was referred to in various ways. Even a cursory glance at the following list of quotations will reveal that historically, nobody understood by Genius what jochanaan implied in his assertion:

http://www.theabsolute.net/minefield/genqtpg.html

There is nothing idiosyncratic about my conception of genius. The way the word genius is used today has nothing to do with what it was supposed to express in the past.

[Mirror Image]

Saint Saëns, someone said, was "The greatest composer who was not a genius."

Who said that?

Do you agree, or who do you think it was?

Who really cares? I mean does this have anything to do with whether or not the music moves us or not? I don't think so.