Camille Saint-Saëns and the Organ Saint-Saëns was almost certainly the greatest organist of his time and among the greatest who has ever lived.  From 1857 until 1877 – from the age of 22 to 42 – he held the extremely prestigious position of organist at Paris’ most chic La Madeleine (Catholic) Church: a huge, Greek temple-like ediface in the 8th arrondisement, just south of the Place de la Concorde and east of the Place Vendôme. While Saint-Saëns could play anything he looked at (his sight-reading was as perfectly polished as any performance), his greatest skill as a performer was as an improviser.  At La Madeleine, he performed an extended improvisation every Sunday, an improvisation typically based on the plainchant melody featured in that day’s mass.  It was one of Saint-Saëns Sunday improvisations that prompted Franz Liszt to write in a letter to his friend Olga von Meyendorff that as an organist: “Saint-Saëns is not merely in the first rank but incomparable, as [Johann] Sebastian Bach is a master of counterpoint.  No orchestra is capable of creating a similar impression; it is the individual communing with music rising from earth to heaven.”  (Not that we need to be reminded, but this […]