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Charles Camille Saint-Saëns (9 October 1835 – 16 December 1921) was a French composer, organist, conductor, and pianist, and more known especially for The Carnival of the Animals, Danse Macabre, Samson et Dalila, and Symphony No. 3 (Organ Symphony).
Saint-Saëns was born in Paris, France. His father died three months after his birth. His mother, Clemence, sought the assistance of her aunt, Charlotte Masson, she moved in and introduced Saint-Saëns to the piano. One of the most talented child prodigies of his time, he possessed perfect pitch at two years of age and began piano lessons with his great-aunt at that time. He almost immediately began composing. His first composition, a little piece for the piano dated 22 March 1839, is now kept in the Bibliothèque nationale de France. His precociousness was not limited to music, however. He had learned to read and write by age three and mastered Latin by seven.
His first piano recital was given at age five, when he accompanied a Beethoven violin sonata. In 1842, Saint-Saëns began piano lessons with Camille-Marie Stamaty, who had his students play the piano while resting their forearms on a bar situated in front of the keyboard, so that all the pianist's power came from the hand and fingers and not the arms. At ten years of age, Saint-Saëns gave his debut public recital with a performance of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 15 , and various pieces by Handel, Kalkbrenner, Hummel, and Bach. As an encore, Saint-Saëns offered to play any one of Beethoven's 32 piano sonatas by memory. Word of this incredible concert spread across Europe, and reached as far as the United States. He then studied organ and composition. Saint-Saëns won many top prizes and at the age of sixteen, Saint-Saëns wrote his first symphony; his second, published as Symphony No. 1 in E-flat major, was performed in 1853 to the astonishment of many critics and fellow-composers. Hector Berlioz, who also became a good friend, famously remarked, Il sait tout, mais il manque d'inexpérience (He knows everything, but lacks inexperience). For income, Saint-Saëns worked playing the organ at various churches in Paris, his weekly improvisations stunned the Parisian public and earned Liszt's 1866 observation that Saint-Saëns was the greatest organist in the world.
Saint-Saëns was a multi-faceted intellectual. From an early age, he studied geology, archaeology, botany, and lepidoptery. He was an expert at mathematics. Later, in addition to composing, performing, and writing musical criticism, he held discussions with Europe's finest scientists and wrote scholarly articles on acoustics, occult sciences, Roman theatre decoration, and ancient instruments. He wrote a philosophical work, Problèmes et Mystères, which spoke of science and art replacing religion; Saint-Saëns's pessimistic and atheistic ideas foreshadowed Existentialism. Other literary achievements included Rimes familières, a volume of poetry, and La Crampe des écrivains, a successful farcical play.
In 1870, the Franco-Prussian War, despite being over in barely six months, left an indelible mark on the composer. He fled to London for several months when the Paris Commune broke out in the besieged Paris of winter 1871. After the fall of the Paris Commune, Saint-Saëns returned and became a powerful figure in shaping the future of French music. In 1875, Saint-Saëns married Marie-Laure Truffot and they had two children, André and Jean-François, who died within six weeks of each other in 1878. Saint-Saëns left his wife three years later. The two never divorced, but lived the rest of their lives apart from one another.
In 1886 Saint-Saëns debuted two of his most renowned compositions: Le Carnaval des Animaux and Symphony No. 3, dedicated to Franz Liszt, who died that year. Two years later, Saint-Saëns's mother died, driving the mourning composer away from France to the Canary Islands under the alias "Sannois". Over the next several years he travelled the world, visiting exotic locations in Europe, North Africa, Southeast Asia, and South America. Saint-Saëns chronicled his travels in many popular books using his nom de plume, Sannois. Saint-Saëns continued to write on musical, scientific and historical topics, travelling frequently before spending his last years in Algiers, Algeria. In recognition of his accomplishments, the government of France awarded him the Légion d'honneur. Saint-Saëns died of pneumonia on 16 December 1921 at the Hôtel de l'Oasis in Algiers. His body was repatriated to Paris, honoured by state funeral at La Madeleine, and interred at Cimetière du Montparnasse in Paris.
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Max Christian Friedrich Bruch (January 6, 1838 – October 2, 1920) a German Romantic composer and conductor who wrote over 200 works, including three violin concertos, one of which is a staple of the violin repertoire. Bruch was born in Cologne, Rhine Province, where he received his early musical training under the composer and pianist Ferdinand Hiller. He had a long career as a teacher, conductor and composer, moving among musical posts in Germany: Mannheim (1862-1864), Koblenz (1865-1867), Sondershausen, (1867-1870) Berlin (1870-1872), Bonn, where he spent 1873 -1878 working privately. At the height of his reputation he spent three seasons as conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society (1880-83). He taught composition at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik (the Berlin Conservatoire) from 1890 until his retirement in 1910.
His conservatively structured works, in the German romantic musical tradition, placed him in the camp of Romantic classicism exemplified by Johannes Brahms, rather than the opposing "New Music" of Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner. In his time, he was known primarily as a choral composer. His Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Op. 26 (1866) is one of the most popular Romantic violin concertos. Other pieces which are also well-known and widely played include the Scottish Fantasy for violin and orchestra Bruch also wrote Kol Nidrei, Op. 47, a popular work for cello and orchestra.
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Millenium - Classical Treasures IV ( 99 , 73min ^ 170mb)
01 - Camille Saint-Saens - Dans Macabre, Op.40 ( 7:07)
02 - Camille Saint-Saens - Carnaval des Animaux - The Swan ( 3:12)
03 - Max Bruch - Violin Concerto No.1 in G minor, Op. 26 - I-Allegro Moderato ( 8:13)
04 - Max Bruch - Violin Concerto No.1 in G minor, Op. 26 - II-Adagio ( 8:41)
05 - Max Bruch - Violin Concerto No.1 in G minor, Op. 26 - III-Finale (allegro Energico) ( 7:04)
06 - Archille-Claude Debussy - Clair de lune ( 4:47)
07 - Joaquin Rodrigo - Concierto De Aranjuez - II-Adagio ( 10:51)
08 - Gustav Mahler - Symphony No.5 in C sharp minor - IV-Adagietto ( 10:00)
09 - Maurice Ravel - Bolero ( 13:03)
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All downloads are in * ogg-7 (224k) or ^ ogg-9(320k), artwork is included , if in need get the nifty ogg encoder/decoder here !
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