To become an adult and at the same time manage to preserve the child inside you is maybe the best wish we can grant ourseves. That would mean that we are capable to play and to have fun in our adulthood, free from the burdern of modern life, if at least for a little while. One could say that artists like painters, writers and musicians play more in respect to the ’ordiary people’, because of the nature of their creative work. But even artists from time to time give themselves a break from serious work and create something just to amuse themselves. And somethimes the result of that kind of creation is just the thing that generations after will remember.
That was the exact thing that happened to the french composer Camille Saint Saens when, instead of the serious simphony, he started composing his Carnaval des Animaux, just for fun! Carnival is made of 14 short musical movements which perfectly represent the chosen animals – Lion, Turtles, Cangaroo, Aquarium… Sure, we can supose that Saint Saens could write another kind of humorous piece, but nothing guaranteed so much fun in composing as playing with the musical images of our feathery, aquatic and four legged friends! Indeed, animals are the perfect choice for making a facetious piece since playing is something they instinctively do since forever!
When grownups start behaving ’like children’ they get the silent permission for entrance to the child’s world. That is another thing this french composer can be proud of – Carnival becoming one of the most popular and fun pieces of music for children and usualy the first one they will listen in a concert hall – when they will either permanently or at least for a moment fall in love with classical music.
The Carnival is often performed with Peter and the Wolf, but if you aren’t listening it at a concert, you can enjoy it from your home starting from the begining, your favorite animal or from the end – The Finale! The Finale is the last movement reminiscenct of the intro: the king of the animals is now joined by the rest of the managery! Thanks to this charming Disney animation The Finale will always be associated with these funny flamingos! Seven of them to be precise and a yo yo – just enough for a complete mess!
Did you know?
Which composer gets the title of a ’child prodigy’ when it comes to classical music? Everyone will say: Mozart, of course! Maybe a less known fact for a wider audience is that Saint Saens was the one who also deservedly got the same nickname! At the age of two and a half he started learning piano, when he was about six years old he wrote his first compositions, and before his 11th birthday he held his debut concert! And the most fascinating thing was the fact he could’t decide which of Beethoven’s sonatas to play for an encore. The Master wrote 32 sonatas and Camille knew all of them by heart!
Saint Saens composed in almost every genre there is: operas, symphonies, concerts, songs, sacred and secular music, chamber, piano pieces, but also the first original film music! It is the music from the short french silent movie from 1908. The Assassination of the Duke of Guise. Beside composing and his exquisite technique of playing, Saint Saens was one of the few artists who had a gift for languages, math, geology and astronomy!!
How lovely and genuinely animals can be represented with music Camille Saint Sanes ingeniously shows us in 12 movements because there are two ’interlopers’ – movements Pianists and People with long ears! The latter is maybe the best example of Saint Sanes’s wittyness because officially it is a movement that depicts a donkey. But, of the record, it is a metaphore for the critics – the composers way of toying with the role and the importnace of those whose right to judge is never questioned.
Since he didn’t consider Carnival serious work, all performances were private and he had even forbidden publishing during his life. The only exception was the famous Swan arranged for cello and piano!