Carnival of the Animals

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The Carnival of the Animals ( Le Carnaval des animaux ) is a suite for chamber orchestra by the French composer Camille Saint-Saëns . The work without an opus number has fourteen small movements and lasts 22-25 minutes. The composer did not release it for publication during his lifetime; today it is one of his most famous works.

In today's performance practice, the pieces are often introduced briefly by a narrator .

story

The Carnival of the Animals , with the subtitle Grande fantaisie zoologique , was composed by Camille Saint-Saëns in January 1886 in a small Austrian village. Here he processed early sketches for the Carnaval in just a few days , which came from a time when he was still working as a piano teacher (1861/1865). The opportunity to write the work was a concert that the then famous cellist Charles Lebouc gave every year on Shrove Tuesday . The Carnival of the Animals was premiered on March 9, 1886 , with Camille Saint-Saëns and Louis Diémer as pianists .

Concerned about his reputation, Saint-Saëns decided not to publish the work for chamber orchestra . Because apart from the fact that the composer imitated animal calls through the instruments in the pieces , he had several of his professional colleagues, e . B. Jacques Offenbach with the "Turtles" and Berlioz as well as Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy with the "Elephant (s)", cited. One of Rossini's arias was apparently parodied among the fossils. The composers were already dead by then, but Saint-Saëns did not want to anger their admirers. The work was only published posthumously by its publisher Jacques Durand on December 16, 1921; the work was performed again during Carnival on February 25, 1922 under the direction of Gabriel Pierné in Paris.

Orchestral line-up

Woodwind instruments : flute (also plays piccolo in No. 14), clarinet (in B and C)
Percussion instruments : xylophone, glass harmonica (often replaced by glockenspiel or celesta )
Keyboard instruments : piano I, piano II
String instruments : violin I, violin II, viola, Violoncello and double bass

Pieces

The Carnival of the Animals belongs to the genre of program music .

  • 1. Introduction et Marche royale du Lion ( introduction and royal march of the lion ) depicts the entry of the animals into an arena , in the central square the "king of the animals", namely the lion, can be clearly heard with a deep roar opens his mouth.
    Instruments: piano I, piano II, strings (1st + 2nd violin, viola, cello and double bass).
    Introduction: bars 1–12 Andante maestoso , 4/4 time. Both pianos perform a tremolo reminiscent of a drum roll over all bars and end in the final bar with an ff -glissando across the entire keyboard. They are supported by all strings with small ascending pitch steps.
    Transition to the march: bars 13–17, Allegro non troppo , here the pianos lead to the march with fanfare rhythms.
    The King's March: from bar 18, Piu Allegro , played by the strings and accompanied by distinctive marching rhythms on the pianos.
    Animal portrait: animal voice of the lion. The roar of lions is imitated by pianos and strings with rapid upward and downward chromatic triplet runs, which are dynamically supported (upward crescendo, downward decrescendo).
  • 2. Poules et coqs ( chickens and roosters ), Allegro moderato , 4/4 time, f
    instruments: clarinet in Bb, piano I, piano II, 1st violin, 2nd violin, viola.
    Animal portrait: animal voices of chicken birds
    - are presented through the stringed instruments . Wild “nagging” makes one think of a flock of chickens pecking and fighting. The “cackling” of the chickens is imitated by the strings, the “Kikeriki” of the roosters is imitated by the pianos and the clarinet.
  • 3. Hémiones (Animaux veloces), ( half-ass (quick animals) ), Presto Furioso , 4/4-time, f
    instruments. Piano I, Piano II
    Animal Portrait: From the speed of plains animals
    Disclosure relates in its essence to escape Animals (like gazelles , zebras etc.). The runs intoned by the pianos are presented at a breakneck tempo over four octaves. They create a picture of the speed of the steppe animals.
  • 4. Tortues ( turtles ), Andante maestoso , 4/4 time, pp
    The instruments: piano I, strings
    Animal portrait: On the slowness of the reptiles.
    Parody I: “La, la, la, la, la, partons, marchons!”
    Parody II: “Ce bal est original d'un galop infernal…!” From Orpheus in der Unterwelt by Jacques Offenbach .
    This piece is one of the aforementioned spoofs of a composer that Saint-Saëns afforded himself. The basis for this piece is the well-known Can-Can , to whose wild music the dancers, screeching and cheering, pull their legs up so far that the audience can see under their skirts. During the Tortues , the listener gets the impression that Offenbach's play fell victim to slow motion . The can-can, once the fastest dance in the world, is presented in unison by the string instruments three times slower (and therefore tired and sluggish). The triplets in the piano underline this slowness (eighth notes against triplets).
  • 5. L'Éléphant ( The Elephant ), Allegretto pomposo , 3/8 time, f
    L'Éléphant: beginning of the middle section
    Hector Berlioz: Dance of the Sylphs, beginning, violin 1
    L'Éléphant: continuation of the middle section
    Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy: Midsummer Night's Dream, Scherzo, excerpt from the violin part

    Instruments: piano II, double bass
    Animal portrait: Dressage act in the arena
    Parody: Danse des sylphes from La damnation de Faust op. 24 by Hector Berlioz , Scherzo from the
    incidental
    music for Midsummer Night's Dream by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy.
    Here Saint-Saëns inserts two further quotations with subtle irony. The double bass tries its hand at the filigree
    elf dance ( Danse des Sylphes ) taken from Faust's damnation and the extremely lively Scherzo from the Midsummer Night's Dream. The topics normally reserved for treble instruments sound rather clumsy and trampling. The piano II takes over the accompaniment in waltz time.
  • 6. Kangourous ( kangaroos ), moderato, 4/4 time.
    Instruments: piano I and piano II
    Animal portrait: The marsupials hopping forward.
    The kangourous are presented by the two pianos and can be recognized by their hopping way. They take turns moving. Your jumps start slowly and get faster and faster (accelerando) until they finally slow down again (ritardando).
  • 7. Aquarium ( The Aquarium ), Andantino , 4/4 time, pp
    instruments: flute, glass harmonica, piano I, piano II ( una corda ) ,
    violin I, violin II, viola and cello (con sordino) .
    The glass harmonica used here is an idiophonic friction instrument whose fine, ethereal sound is created by rubbing the glass bowls with water-wetted fingertips.
    At the time of Camille Saint-Saëns, the instrument had long passed its heyday and had gone out of fashion because of its small volume. Saint-Saëns has linked the glass harmonica with the aquarium (glass container): here the glass housing to hold water as a habitat for aquatic animals, there the glass harmonica with glass bowls and water to create sounds.
    In today's performance practice, instead of the glass harmonica, the orchestral glockenspiel, the keyboard glockenspiel or the celesta are used as a substitute instrument .
    Animal portrait: Ornamental fish
    An atmospheric picture. The movements in the music and the pearly runs of the pianos are reminiscent of gently moving water with rising air bubbles "painted" by the glass harmonica.
  • 8. Personnages à longues oreilles ( personalities with long ears ), ad lib. 3/4 cycle, et seq.
    Instruments: Violin I, Violin II
    Animal Portrait: animal sounds
    with this title are Hausesel meant. The typical donkey scream, the drawn out "I-aah", is presented by the violins .
  • 9. Le coucou au fond des bois ( The cuckoo in the depths of the forest ), Andante, 3/4 time, pp.
    Instruments: Clarinet in Bb (dans la coulisse) , piano I, piano II
    Animal portrait: Cuckoo call from a distance
    A mood picture. The calm music stands for the atmosphere of an inanimate forest, represented by the piano accompaniment, which consists of softly played chords. From a distance the call of the cuckoo (voiced by a clarinet with a falling major third d 2 - b 1 (sounding: c 2 - a flat 1 )) can be heard over and over again.
  • 10. Volière ( The Aviary ), Moderato grazioso, 3/4 stroke, p
    Instruments: Flute, Piano I, Piano II, Strings
    Animal Portrait: bird sounds
    quite different presents aviary . The birdcage is lively, a piece that is tailored entirely to the flute , which imitates the happy chirping of birds: fast, written chains of trills, chord breaks and chromatic runs imitate the flying and fluttering of the little bird house inhabitants. The pianos with their short tone repetitions, chromatic runs, suggestions and trills in high registers imitate the singing of exotic birds. The tremolo of the high strings creates a constant buzz in the air; only the cellos and basses with their pizzicati provide a little rest.
  • 11. Pianistes ( pianists ), allegro moderato, 4/4 time, f
    instruments: piano I, piano II, strings
    Animal portrait: pianists
    Animals in zoos attract many curious people year after year, and pianists also understand their music keep attracting their audience. Saint-Saëns, who himself was an excellent pianist and had composed numerous demanding piano works as well as five piano concertos , lets the two pianists who want to prove their finger dexterity on a piano etude reminiscent of Czerny drill scales . After initially “warming up” they now bring their etude to a brilliant end with the accompaniment of the strings, applause.
  • 12. Fossil ( Vinyl ), Allegro ridicolo , 2/2-clock, ff
    instruments: clarinet, xylophone, piano I, II piano, strings
    A curious instrument is the xylophone here. At the time the carnival came into being (1886), it was far from being established in the orchestra. It was Camille Saint-Saëns who, with his symphonic poem Danse macabre (1876), introduced the xylophone as a new orchestral instrument in “classical” orchestral literature. Because probably no other instrument is so predestined to bring the fossils back to life. The tonewood sticks, made of well-dried and long-seasoned hardwood, are themselves already "petrified". Their sharp, pointed sound could be very similar to that of fossils.
    Animal portrait: petrified animals
    Saint-Saëns makes the bones rattle, so to speak, voiced by a xylophone whose swirling melody on the hardwood rods conjures up the impression of dancing bone animals. The bone motif for this comes from the Danse Macabre , also by Saint-Saëns, it is played by the woodwinds and the xylophone. The motif of death, playing to dance, is primarily intoned by the solo violin . He also uses the melody of the children's song Ah! vous dirai-je maman , the opening bars of which Mozart inspired on the theme of his twelve piano variations (KV 265).
    The piece Fossiles , in rondo form, played quickly and ridiculously, consists of a series of quotations, mostly from pieces that were old at the time of Saint-Saëns, but are nevertheless well-known and popular.
    Quote I: The xylophone plays the nightly bustle of the skeletons from Camille Saint-Saëns' own Danse macabre ,
    Quote II: both pianos and all the strings play: J'ai du bon tabac and then
    Quote III: Ah! vous dirai-je, maman .
    Quote IV: The Clarinet it is reserved Au clair de la lune and solo
    Quote V: Partant pour la Syrie to play, accompanied by the piano I, and then as a bonus
    quote VI: Rosina's aria Una voce poco fa from Rossini's Barber of Seville .
  • 13. Le Cygne ( The Swan ), Andantino grazioso, 6/4 time, pp
    Instruments: cello, piano I, piano II
    Animal portrait: white water bird
    An atmospheric picture. It is the only piece from the "Carnival of the Animals" that Camille Saint-Saëns confessed to during his lifetime. A magnificent swan glides on a lake. Appropriate to the size and beauty of the animal, the romance is played by the violoncello in its tenoral register. This piece was also known as the music for the dance solo The Dying Swan .
  • 14. Final ( Das Finale ), Molto allegro , 4/4 time
    instruments: piccolo, clarinet in C, glass harmonica, xylophone, piano I, piano II, strings
    The finale closes the circle of animal portraits. As in the introduction to the King's March, the pianos, this time supported by the piccolo, the clarinet, the glass harmonica and the xylophone, open the finale with a brilliant tremolo. After ten bars the introductory bars lead to a very fast gallop. Here the animals appear together again. You can see that almost all of the animals presented make another brief appearance.

Literary adaptations

Camille Saint-Saëns' Carnival of the Animals has been processed many times. In addition to several picture book versions, there are among others. the following German titles:

Cinematic implementation

"Carnival of the Animals" as film music

Audio sample

Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra Recording: Listen ? / iAudio file / audio sample

documentary

  • 2021: Holger Preusse, Philipp Quiring: The Carnival of Animals - A piece of music told. Documentary, WDR, ARTE, 52 min.

literature

  • Michael Stegemann : Camille Saint-Saëns . rowohlt's monographs, Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1988, ISBN 3-499-50389-1
  • Camille Saint-Saëns: Le Carnaval des Animaux . Pocket score. Edition Eulenburg No. 1370, London 1981.

Web links

Commons : Carnival of the Animals  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. soundtrackcollector.com
  2. The Perfect Storm - Simpsonspedia, the Simpsons Wiki. In: simpsonspedia.net. Retrieved November 22, 2016 .
  3. The Carnival of the Animals - A piece of music told. berlin producers, accessed on November 28, 2021.