Saint-Saëns - Famous works

Camille Saint-Saëns concert program Salle Pleyel 1896

Program cover from Camille Saint-Saëns’s 1896 concert at Salle Pleyel in Paris, marking fifty years since his debut at the same venue.

The creative output of Camille Saint-Saëns is remarkably extensive and stylistically diverse, spanning opera, symphonic music, concertante works, chamber music, keyboard compositions, and sacred choral writing. His catalogue reflects both Classical discipline and Romantic imagination, combined with exceptional technical mastery.

Saint-Saëns’s oeuvre stands as a testament to intellectual clarity, stylistic elegance, and expressive versatility—qualities that secured his place as one of the central figures of French music in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Below is a representative selection of Saint-Saëns’s most significant and enduring works.

Operas:

The Yellow Princess, Opus 30
Samson and Dalila, Opus 47
Henry VIII
Les Barbares

Orchestral Works:

Symphony No. 1 in E flat major, Opus 2
Symphony No. 2 in A minor, Opus 55
Symphony No. 3 "Organ Symphony" in C minor, Opus 78
Heroic March in E flat major, Opus 34
Danse macabre, Symphonic Poem in G minor, Opus 40
The Youth of Hercules, Opus 50
One night in Lisbon in E flat major, Opus 63
Algerian Suite in C major, Opus 60

Concertante Works:

Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso in A minor, Opus 28

Chamber music:

Piano Trio No. 1 in F major, Opus 18
Allegro appassionato in B minor, Opus 43
Oboe Sonata in D major, Opus 166
Clarinet Sonata in E-flat major, Opus 167
Bassoon Sonata in G major, Opus 168
Violin Sonata No. 1 in D minor, Opus 75
Violin Sonata No. 2 in E flat major, Opus 102
The Carnival of the Animals

Keyboard/Organ:

Fantaisie No. 1 in E-flat Major

Choral & Sacred Works:

Mass, Opus 4
Christmas Oratorio, Opus 12
The Flood, Opus 45
Requiem, Opus 54

Comments

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