Camille Saint-Sans (1835 1921) Saint-Sans [pronounced sah-soh] was one of the great Romantic composers. He had been a prodigy like Mozart, composing his first piano piece at four. Aged five, he played a Beethoven piece in his first concert. As a composer, his most popular work today is probably The Carnival of the Animals, which he refused to have publicly performed in his lifetime, as he felt people would consider him frivolous.

However Saint-Sans was also a very knowledgeable and prolific writer in such diverse disciplines as math, geology, botany and philosophy. It was almost predictable that astronomy would be among his interests. He was a member of the Astronomical Society of France, founded in 1887 by his friend Camille Flammarion (1842 1925). Although Saint-Sans had a telescope, he admitted that he wasn't a methodical observer, preferring simply to enjoy the beauty and serenity of the heavens.

Occasionally, Saint-Sans, probably in collaboration with Flammarion, organized concerts around astronomical events such as the summer solstice. I'm surprised that he never wrote any music inspired by astronomy.

Brian May (born 1947) More people have heard Brian May on guitar in the band Queen than know that he has a PhD in astrophysics from Imperial College, London. Although he started music lessons when he was seven, he got interested in astronomy at an early age, too. He was inspired by astronomy popularizer Patrick Moore (1923-2012). May's 4-inch reflector was a telescope he and his father made long ago, as was his trademark guitar, the Red Special.

So would it be music or science? May played in a band, and he did a physics degree. He turned down a job at Jodrell Bank Observatory to stay at Imperial College because of the London music scene. The choice was finally made when the band Queen started becoming popular, and the PhD seemed to be running out of steam. It was decades later that Patrick Moore persuaded May to complete the PhD.

In addition to music and other interests, Brian May has co-authored two popular astronomy books and is a keen amateur observer.

By the way, Patrick Moore himself was a keen amateur musician. He said that he once played the piano to accompany Albert Einstein on his violin. Appropriately, the piece was from Saint-Sans's Carnival of the Animals.

Bernard Lovell (1913 2012) Bernard Lovell is one of the great names of radio astronomy. He founded the Jodrell Bank Observatory in Cheshire, England in 1945. Its iconic telescope later named the Lovell Telescope opened in 1957. It was then the largest steerable radio telescope in the world, though there are larger ones now.

Bernard Lovell and Jodrell Bank were pioneers in radio astronomy. The facility still contributes to developments in astronomy, including studying pulsars, quasars and gravitational lensing. It also did extensive Cold War tracking of satellites and spacecraft, sometimes being able to see areas of the sky which neither the Americans nor the Soviets could.

Lovell had already chosen science and used his abilities during World War II to develop effective radar. He then went on to radio astronomy. Yet he insisted that his real love was always organs and organ music. He was a church organist for forty years. In 2007 he said, I often wish that I had devoted my whole attention to music and become more of a professional musician. But it's unlikely that his contributions to music could possibly have equaled his contribution to science.

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Musical Astronomers