Carnival of the Animals

Synopsis

Today’s date in 1886 marks the premiere in Paris of The Carnival of the Animals, the most popular work of French composer Camille Saint-Saëns, who steadfastly refused to allow it to be published until after his death, fearing its frivolity might damage his reputation as a “serious” composer.

Saint-Saëns had a point. The work was first heard at a pre-Lenten house concert, and a few days later at Émile Lemoine’s exclusive members-only chamber music series, where it became an annual Shrove Tuesday Carnival tradition. Once the famous pianist Harold Bauer was one of the Shrove Tuesday performers, as he recalled in his autobiography:

“Everyone who participated had to wear makeup representing the animal whose music he was supposed to be playing. The flutist had a carboard head showing him as a nightingale. The cellist was a very flabby swan; the distinguished players of the string quartet were shown as donkeys of various breeds. Saint-Saëns and I were the two pianists — he made up to look like our host Lemoine, and I, furnished with a wig and beard, disguised as Saint-Saëns. [We two] pianists were provided with immense carboard hands and feet that were clipped off at the moment of performance, which was extremely hilarious.”

Music Played in Today's Program

Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921): Carnival of the Animals; David Owen Norris, piano; I Musici Montreal; Yuli Turovsky, conductor; Chandos 9246

On This Day

Births

• 1891 - Spanish composer Federico Moreno Torroba, in Madrid

Deaths

• 1768 - Italian composer Nicola Porpora, 81, in Naples

• 1824 - Italian composer and violin virtuoso Giovanni Battista Viotti, 68, in London

• 1932 - British-born German composer and pianist Eugène d'Albert, 67, in Riga

Premieres

• 1793 - Haydn: Symphony No. 101 (The Clock), conducted by the composer, at the Hanover-Square Concert Rooms in London

• 1842 - Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 3 (Scottish), by the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, with the composer conducting

• 1853 - revised version of R. Schumann: Symphony No. 4, with the Düsseldorf Municipal Orchestra, conducted by the composer. An earlier version of this symphony premiered in Leipzig in 1841 as Schumann’s Symphony No. 2, but the composer withdrew the score and composed and premiered a new Symphony No. 2 and Symphony No. 3 before revising and reintroducing this symphony as No. 4.

• 1870 - Brahms: Alto Rhapsody, by the singer Pauline Viardot-Garcia, in Jena, Germany

• 1875 - Bizet: opera Carmen, in Paris at the Opéra-Comique

• 1893 - George Templeton Strong, Jr.: Symphony No. 2 (Sintram), at a public afternoon rehearsal by the New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall, with Anton Seidl conducting. The official premiere concert took place the following evening.

• 1899 - R. Strauss: tone-poem Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life), in Frankfurt, with Strauss conducting

• 1918 - Bartók: String Quartet No. 2, in Budapest, by the Waldbauer Quartet

• 1944 - Barber: Symphony No. 2, by the Boston Symphony, Serge Koussevitzky conducting

• 1951 - Otto Luening: Kentucky Concerto by the Louisville Orchestra, with the composer conducting

• 1959 - Cowell: Symphony No. 13 (Madras) in Madras, India

• 1963 - Menotti: television opera Labyrinth, broadcast over the NBC network

Others

• 1886 - American premiere (in a concert version) of Wagner’s Parsifal at the Old Metropolitan Opera House, by the New York Symphony and Oratorio Society conducted by the 24-year old Walter Damrosch. The soloists included soprano Marianne Brandt, who had alternated the role of Kundry with soprano Amalie Materna in the premiere staged performances of the opera in Bayreuth in July of 1882. The first fully staged presentation of Parsifal in the U.S. did not occur at the Met until Dec. 24, 1903.

• 1922 - U.S. premiere of concert version of Stravinsky’s ballet score, The Rite of Spring, in Philadelphia, with Leopold Stokowski conducting.