There is good and bad music; the rest is a matter of fashion or convention. Camille Saint-Saëns gave his first concert in Paris at the age of eleven. To his contemporaries, he was the new Mozart. He gained great fame through the opera Samson et Dalila and the Carnival of the Animals, which was published only after his death. Throughout his life, he advocated for French music and sought to prevent German influences. Despite the promising start to his career, he was considered old-fashioned and conservative around the turn of the century. As the first and until 1988 the only biographer, Otto Neitzel paints a portrait of an exceptional musician in this 1899 work, who faded into obscurity far too quickly. In addition to numerous images and photographs, the work also includes parts of his compositions.