Soundtracks:
Days of Heaven
Babe
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Carnival of the Animals
Saint-Saëns wrote one of the best musical jokes
in history, and he did it with typical French style and grace. But he also
paid a heavy price, for millions remember his caricaturist "Carnival
of the Animals" instead of his best serious works. The humorous description
of the zoo, as Saint-Saëns saw it, charmed many people and made the
"Carnival" one of the most popular works in concerts for youth.
However this work is also a parody, a scorning description
the composer gave the phenomena that surrounded him, such as portraying
music critics as donkeys braying at a new work they have just heard, or
the turtles dancing to the sound of Offenbach's "Can-can", played
slowly. The composer even scorns his own music, played in Paris over and
over again, with irony.
 The
"Carnival of the Animals" pieces:
- Introduction and the lions' royal parade
- Cocks and chickens
- Savages
- The turtles - the
gallop from Offenbach's "Orpheo", played slowly
- An elephant -
aparody of the Sylaphies waltz from "Orpheo" by Berlioz
- The Kangaroo
- The aquarium
- Creatures of long ears
- The cuckoo in the forest
- Birds
- Fossilized creatures - imitation of popular melodies
played to the death, including his own "The Dance of Death"
- The swan - the most
famous tune for cello and piano, that became one of the best-loved Romantic
movements.
- Pianos - a new kind of animal, which the composer heard
in his tours in Paris, sounding musical scales up and down
- A joint dance of all animals - animals are heard one
by one
- Music critics "bray" their critique of the
piece - the long-eared creatures return
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