Camille Saint-Saëns was an example of the consummate musician as he was a performer, conductor, composer and musicologist. Music was not his only interest, as he also studied many areas of science such as archeology, botany and especially astronomy. He was keen on mathematics and literature as well.His musical output included works for solo piano, piano and orchestra, symphonies, opera, and chamber music. He also composed music for the solo organ, but much of it is relatively unknown. It was as a professional organist that Saint-Saëns started his musical career when he was 18 years old in 1853 as church organist in Paris. He spent around 20 years in the service of the church, and then made his way as a freelance composer, performer on the piano and organ, and conductor.
Saint-Saëns held only one teaching position in his entire career, at the École de Musique Classique et Religieuse in Paris, a school that was founded to develop organists and musicians for the churches of France. He was the head of piano studies and remained at the school for 5 years. One of the students he taught there was Gabriel Fauré, and the two became life-long friends. Saint-Saëns and some of his other friends took Fauré along with them on a trip to Brittany in the north of France in 1866. While traveling to an ancient chapel in the area, Saint-Saëns heard some folksongs of the region and used them as material in his Opus 7 work 3 Rhapsodies sur des cantiques bretons, Pélérinage au pardon de Sainte Anne-la-Palud.
The third rhapsody of the set is in three sections. The first section begins with a sad tune in A minor. The second section is a short musette tune first played on the reed stops of the organ. The next section begins with a more robust tune first heard in the pedals of the organ. This grows in intensity as it is repeated with more stops of the organ. The beginning tune then reappears, followed by a repeat of the musette tune.
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