Camille Saint-Saëns et le prix de Rome

CD-Book. Glossa. Prix de Rome n. 2.

Camille Saint-Saëns and the Prix de Rome... an odd coupling for a composer who never won the coveted prize and was never a resident at the famous Villa Medici. Yet Saint-Saëns entered the competition twice, and – a unique occurrence in the history of the Prix de Rome – twelve years apart: in 1852 and again in 1864. On the first occasion, he was still a teenager, whose sole object of worship was the great Mendelssohn; the second time, he already had under his belt a number of masterpieces whose stature posterity has confirmed, and had met Verdi and discovered Wagner. If the music he composed went unrewarded for a second time, it was perhaps because it contained an element of modernity that was found disturbing: Ivanhoé, the cantata for 1864, clearly does not shrink from comparison with Il trovatore... Between these two competitions, Saint-Saëns also earned a reputation in church music by composing many splendid motets. Proof that it is possible to shine at religious academism and fail at the operatic equivalent... unless, of course, we count Samson et Dalila!

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