Carnival of the Animals

Composer: SAINT-SAËNS, Camille
  • Saint-Saëns composed Le carnaval des animaux: grande fantasie zoologique in 1886 while he was on vacation in Austria. He completed the score in just a few days.1
  • Saint-Saëns composed as a surprise contribution to cellist Charles Lebouc’s annual Mardi Gras concert. He included solos for Lebouc (“The Swan”) as well as for the other musicians who were booked for this concert.2
  • The Carnival of the Animals premiered on March 9, 1886 at Lebouc’s Mardi Gras concert.3
  • Except for “The Swan,” Saint-Saëns forbade public performances of The Carnival of the Animals during his lifetime. He felt it would damage his reputation as a serious composer.4
    • He didn’t even give The Carnival of the Animals an opus number. The full score wasn’t published until 1922, the year after his death. 

Sources

  1. Daniel M. Fallon, Sabina Teller Ratner, and James Harding, “Saint-Saëns, (Charles) Camille,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed January 14, 2020, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000024335. 
  2. Sabina Teller Ratner, Camille-Saint-Saëns 1835-1921s: A Thematic Catalogue of His Complete Works, Vol. 1 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 188.
  3. Ibid.
  4. Fallon et al, “Saint-Saëns, (Charles) Camille,” Grove Music Online.

Cut IDs

15148, 11772, 19398, 21863, 21970