Saint -Saens: Carnival of the Animals

About Carnival of the Animals:

Composer: Camille Saint-Saens (1835 - 1921) France

When Camille Saint-Saens was just a toddler, his mother and his great-aunt began teaching him music. He was only five years old when he gave his first public piano performance. When he was seven, he began to study with other teachers, and had already begun composing his own music. He became one of the most famous French composers.

Saint-Saens also liked to write poetry, scientific papers, and essays about music. Sometimes he made enemies because he insulted his fellow musicians when he wrote about them.

The Carnival of the Animals was initially written for that purpose, but now is a well known piece, which depicts different animals though music.

The piece is written for a symphony orchestra and has fourteen different movements that cleverly use sounds created by instruments to mimic the sounds of different animals. A performance of the whole piece lasts about twenty-five minutes!

Carnival of the Animals downloadable packet link option:

https://tinyurl.com/y8zk38x7

This packet includes color pages with a picture for each movement/section, with the main melody notated on a staff at the bottom. If you have a printer, this would be a fun packet to use as you listen to each section of the piece!

As you listen to each movement with the videos below, describe what types of musical elements you hear the composer use to represent the animal or subject:

Which tempo is used? Largo (slow), andante (walking speed), or presto (fast)

Which dynamics (volume) are used? piano (soft), forte (loud), or somewhere in between- mp, or mf?

Is the music short and staccato, or long and legato?

What other special elements or instruments do you hear that make you think of that animal?

1) INTRODUCTION and the ROYAL MARCH OF THE LION:

The piano and strings play a grand march