The music of Saint-Saëns is often criticized, "It has no emotion" or "It is the too cool music". So although he wrote many works, except a few popular works like Troisième Symphonie and Le Carnaval des animaux etc, we seldom play Saint-Saëns.

Certainly he wrote many occasional works for requests. But just think of it. He was a success as an musician and he didn't have to write such many works. If he refused some requests, he might concentrate his energy on his personal and spontaneous works and could add expressions of his personal emotion to them. But he didn't so. Why? Because he wanted to conceal or ignore his personal thing, I think. And this is just his emotion. That is to say, he was afraid of the human beings and he couldn't open up his mind to them. But we cannnot live without the relation to other people. So when he couldn't stand human relations, he took refuge in his works or travels. His busyness was the excuse that he didn't have any colse relation to other people and permitted him to forget the reality. But he was never satisfyed nor happy. So he never stopped his travel nor creative activity. His loneliness urged him to the vagabondage. And this agony made him the more misanthropic and his misanthropy made his music the more cold and closed.

I think his music is like a cathedral made of glass. The form is perfect and it has no blur. It is apparently magnificent but I feel the vanity in it. And this vanity is just the cry of his soul and I sympathize with him in this point.

He contributed to the developement of the instrumental music. Especially, his concerto works are his masterpieces, I think. Occasionally, the coolness of his music gives us a monotonous impression. But in the concerto works, the contrast between solo and tutti give them the intonation and the change and make up for the monotone, for example the organ in Troisième Symphonie and the violin in the prelude of Le Déluge.

I like Morceau de concert pour harpe the best in Saint-Saëns' works. Because it contains all the good points of his music and french music; elegance, brightness, brilliance, simplicity, clearness, colorfulness, concision, virtuosity, fine orhestration and well-proportioned form.

The harp is one of the characteristic instruments in the french classical music, I think.

The one of characters of the french classical music is the music of "toe shoes", that is to say, in the balance of the voice part, the volume of the soprano is big and it of the bass is little. This balance make the french classical music light, elegant and colorful.

The shape of harp, itself is the triangle tiptoe, it is dynamically unstable and it gives us an impression of the delicacy. Further, in comparison with the whole size, the size of its echo chamber is too little, so the volume of harp, especially in the bass part, is little. And the sound of harp is elegant, bright and brilliant.