The Carnival of the Animals

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Carnival of the Animals (French: Le carnaval des animaux) is a musical suite of 14 movements by the French Romantic composer Camille Saint-Saëns.

1 History
2 Content
3 The references
4 Cultural references to The Carnival of the Animals
5 External links

[edit] History

Le Carnaval was composed in February 1886 while Saint-Saëns was vacationing in a small Austrian village. It was originally scored for a chamber group of flute, clarinet, two pianos, glass harmonica, xylophone, two violins, viola, cello and double bass, but is usually performed today with a full orchestra of strings, and with a glockenspiel substituting for the rare glass harmonica.

Saint-Saëns, apparently concerned that the piece was too frivolous and likely to harm his reputation as a serious composer, suppressed performances of it and only allowed one movement, Le Cygne, to be published in his lifetime. Only small private performances were given for close friends like Franz Liszt.

Saint-Saëns's will, however, included a provision which allowed the suite to be published after his death and it has since become one of his most popular works. It is a favorite of music teachers and young children, along with Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf and Britten's The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra.

[edit] Content

There are fourteen movements:

Introduction et marche royale du Lion (Introduction and Royal March of the Lion)
Poules et Coqs (Hens and Cocks)
Hémiones (animaux véloces) (Wild Asses)
Tortues (Tortoises)
L'Éléphant (The Elephant)
Kangourous (Kangaroos)
Aquarium
Personnages à longues oreilles (People with Long Ears)
Le coucou au fond des bois (The Cuckoo in the Depths of the Woods)
Volière (Aviary)
Pianistes (Pianists)
Fossiles (Fossils)
Le Cygne (The Swan)
Finale

[edit] The references

As the title suggests, the work follows a zoological program and progresses from the first movement ("Introduction and Royal March of the Lion"), through portraits of elephants and donkeys ("Those with Long Ears") to a finale reprising many of the earlier motifs.

Several of the movements are of humorous intent:

"Pianists" depicts piano students practising scales
"Wild Asses" also depicts pianists, but of the more skilled (concert) variety (hence the subtitle 'fast animals')
"Tortoises" is a greatly slowed-down version of the famous Can-can from Jacques Offenbach's operetta Orpheus in the Underworld
"L'Éléphant" is Hector Berlioz's "Dances des sylphes" much lower than usual as a double bass solo.
"Fossils" quotes Saint-Saëns' own Danse macabre as well as two nursery rhymes, J'ai du bon tabac and Ah ! vous dirai-je, Maman (Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star), also Rosinni's aria from The Barber of Seville
The 'Persons with Long Ears' section is in fact directed at music critics: they are also the last animals heard (braying) during the finale.

[edit] Cultural references to The Carnival of the Animals

The ballet The Dying Swan is choreographed to the Swan section.

Ogden Nash wrote a set of humorous verses to accompany each movement, which are often recited when the work is performed. The conclusion of the verse for the "Fossils", for example, fits perfectly with the punchline-like first bar of the music:

Last night in the museum hall

The fossils gathered for a ball

There were no drums or saxophones,

But just the clatter of their bones,

A rolling, rattling, carefree circus

Of mammoth polkas and mazurkas.

Pterodactyls and brontosauruses

Sang ghostly prehistoric choruses.

Amid the mastodonic wassail

I caught the eye of one small fossil.

Cheer up, sad world, he said, and winked-

It's kind of fun to be extinct.

Throughout the long-running Carry On Films, the elephant was used as the signature tune for the characters played by Hattie Jacques, when they first appeared on screen.

In 1976 Warner Brothers produced a television special featuring The Carnival of the Animals with Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck playing the dual pianos (it opened with Bugs and Daffy arguing over the pronunciation of the composer's name--Camille Saint-Saëns or Camel Saynt Saynes).

In 1999, Walt Disney Feature Animation incorporated the Finale into Fantasia 2000. In the film, a flock of flamingos is annoyed by another flamingo with a yo-yo. The music was recorded by James Levine conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

A surf-rock version of Aquarium covered by Dick Dale was used as the theme song of the Space Mountain roller coaster at Disneyland in California from 1996 to 2003.

The part Swan is used in the 2005 film My Summer of Love by P. Pawlikowski. Tamsin performs it on her cello when Mona visits her house for the first time.

Aquarium is featured in the trailer for the 2006 film Charlotte's Web. It is also the opening theme music to the 1978 film Days of Heaven.

Australian/British classical crossover string quartet Bond remade a version of Aquarium.