Editing Camille Saint-Saëns (section)

===Orchestral works===
The authors of the 1955 ''[[The Record Guide]]'', [[Edward Sackville-West, 5th Baron Sackville|Edward Sackville-West]] and [[Desmond Shawe-Taylor (music critic)|Desmond Shawe-Taylor]] write that Saint-Saëns's brilliant musicianship was "instrumental in drawing the attention of French musicians to the fact that there are other forms of music besides opera."<ref name=rg>Sackville-West and Shawe-Taylor, p. 641</ref> In the 2001 edition of ''Grove's Dictionary'', Ratner and Daniel Fallon, analysing Saint-Saëns's orchestral music rate the unnumbered Symphony in A ({{Circa|1850}}) as the most ambitious of the composer's juvenilia. Of the works of his maturity, the First Symphony (1853) is a serious and large-scale work, in which the influence of Schumann is detectable. The "Urbs Roma" Symphony (1856, unnumbered) in some ways represents a backward step, being less deftly orchestrated, and "thick and heavy" in its effect.<ref name=g2 /> Ratner and Fallon praise the Second Symphony (1859) as a fine example of orchestral economy and structural cohesion, with passages that show the composer's mastery of [[fugue|fugal]] writing. The best known of the symphonies is the [[Symphony No. 3 (Saint-Saëns)|Third]] (1886) which, unusually, has prominent parts for piano and organ. It opens in C minor and ends in C major with a stately chorale tune. The four movements are clearly divided into two pairs, a practice Saint-Saëns used elsewhere, notably in the [[Piano Concerto No. 4 (Saint-Saëns)|Fourth Piano Concerto]] (1875) and the [[Violin Sonata No. 1 (Saint-Saëns)|First Violin Sonata]] (1885).<ref name=g2/> The work is dedicated to the memory of Liszt, and uses a recurring ''motif'' treated in a Lisztian style of [[thematic transformation]].<ref name=rg/>

[[File:Liszt-inscribed-to-fauré.jpg|thumb|left|upright|alt=Picture postcard with portrait and hand-written inscription|Saint-Saëns modelled his [[symphonic poem]]s on those of [[Franz Liszt|Liszt]], seen here on a postcard inscribed to [[Gabriel Fauré|Fauré]]]]
Saint-Saëns's four symphonic poems follow the model of those by Liszt, though, in Sackville-West's and Shawe-Taylor's view, without the "vulgar blatancy" to which the earlier composer was prone.<ref name=rg2>Sackville-West and Shawe-Taylor, pp. 642–643</ref> The most popular of the four is ''[[Danse macabre (Saint-Saëns)|Danse macabre]]'' (1874) depicting skeletons dancing at midnight. Saint-Saëns generally achieved his orchestral effects by deft harmonisation rather than exotic instrumentation,<ref name=g2/> but in this piece he featured the [[xylophone]] prominently, representing the rattling bones of the dancers.<ref>Rees, p. 182</ref> ''Le Rouet d'Omphale'' (1871) was composed soon after the horrors of the Commune, but its lightness and delicate orchestration give no hint of recent tragedies.<ref name=r177>Rees, p. 177</ref> Rees rates ''[[Phaéton (Saint-Saëns)|Phaéton]]'' (1873) as the finest of the symphonic poems, belying the composer's professed indifference to melody,{{refn|Saint-Saëns wrote in his book ''Musical Memories'', "He who does not get absolute pleasure from a simple series of well-constructed chords, beautiful only in their arrangement, is not really fond of music."<ref>Saint-Saëns, p. 109</ref>|group= n}} and inspired in its depiction of the [[Phaethon|mythical hero]] and his fate.<ref name=r177/> A critic at the time of the premiere took a different view, hearing in the piece "the noise of a hack coming down from Montmartre" rather than the galloping fiery horses of Greek legend that inspired the piece.<ref>Jones (2006), p. 78</ref> The last of the four symphonic poems, ''La jeunesse d'Hercule'' ("Hercules's Youth", 1877) was the most ambitious of the four, which, Harding suggests, is why it is the least successful.<ref>Harding, p. 123</ref> In the judgment of the critic [[Roger Nichols (musical scholar)|Roger Nichols]] these orchestral works, which combine striking melodies, strength of construction and memorable orchestration "set new standards for French music and were an inspiration to such young composers as Ravel".<ref name=ox/>

Saint-Saëns wrote a one-act ballet, ''Javot'' (1896), the score for the film ''[[The Assassination of the Duke of Guise|L'assassinat du duc de Guise]]'' (1908),{{refn|This music is sometimes cited as the first score composed for a film, but there were earlier examples. The first known original orchestral score written to accompany a silent film was [[Herman Finck]]'s music for a 1904 [[Pathé]] release, ''Marie Antoinette'', scored for an orchestra of more than forty players.<ref>Usai, p. 197</ref> ''Encore'' magazine commented at the time on Finck's "harmonious pen" in providing the music for the film.<ref>''Encore'', January 1904, ''quoted'' in Wierzbicki, pp. 41 and 247</ref>|group= n}} and incidental music to a dozen plays between 1850 and 1916. Three of these scores were for revivals of classics by [[Molière]] and Racine, for which Saint-Saëns's deep knowledge of French baroque scores was reflected in his scores, in which he incorporated music by Lully and [[Marc-Antoine Charpentier|Charpentier]].<ref name=fallon/><ref>Rees, p. 299</ref>