Camile Saint- Saëns

Famous French composer of the late 19th and early 20th century (Paris 1835 - Algiers 1921). He spent long periods of time in Santa María de Guía.

If there is a place in the history of the northern municipality for a foreign name, it is undoubtedly reserved for the French musician. The composer of such famous works as Les marins de Kermox, Samson and Delilah and Brunehilda spent several periods of his long stays in Gran Canaria in a finca in the northern municipality. These stays were largely due to another Frenchman, Juan Ledeveze y Redonnet, a merchant based on the island, who had an estate there, Villa Melpómene, where he offered hospitality to his illustrious compatriot.

At Villa Melpómene Saint-Saëns worked on the composition of his opera Dejanaire, which was completed in April of that year and premiered in August in Barcelona. During this stay in Guíñes, the composer befriended Manual Rodríguez Ojeda, owner of a nearby property, with whom he spent long hours of conversation sharing the freshly milked milk from the cows on the farm, seasoned with gofio.

A second episode in the life of Saint-Saëns took place in 1900, on the occasion of the premiere of the great organ in the parish church of Santa María de Guía, now undergoing restoration. The composer, who had been invited to inaugurate the instrument brought from Turin, played among other works the Te Deum, in a concert that was described by the writer Francisco González Díaz as follows:

…"The organ thundered, it sang over the whole of Guía shaken, and the gusts of the sonorous storm made the heads bend, as the ears of corn are prostrated by the wind".