Contrapunctus

Camille Saint-⁠Saëns / V. The French Line

Le Carnaval des animaux

1886 · Two pianos, strings, winds, glass harmonica and xylophone

Written at Chrudim for the Mardi Gras concert of 9 March 1886. Published only after his death, in 1922; the thirteenth piece, Le Cygne, appeared in his lifetime.

Recordings

Historical and comparison recordings, outside the concert’s running order.

  1. XIII. Le Cygne — cello and pianoJudith Bokor, cello; unidentified pianist · Around 1925
    2:34

    Judith Bokor plays “Le Cygne”, the thirteenth movement of Le Carnaval des animaux (The Carnival of the Animals), for cello and piano. The cello plays a long melody over continuous figuration in the piano.

    Listening notes
    1. Opening, piano and cello

      The piano sets out G major in broken chords. The cello enters after one bar with a melody that falls twice and then climbs. Each bar has six crotchet beats, and the piano divides them into short, even notes beneath the cello’s longer ones.

    2. The Dying Swan, 1905

      In 1905 Anna Pavlova and the choreographer Michel Fokine made this cello solo into The Dying Swan. Saint-⁠Saëns’s movement has twenty-eight bars. The dance became the role most closely associated with Pavlova.

    3. Final bars, held G

      The last phrase slows and the cello holds a high G, marked pianissimo. The piano continues its broken chords beneath the held note, then finishes alone. The final rest also carries a pause mark.

    Open in the Concert Hall

  2. XIII. Le Cygne — cello and marimbaAlisa Weilerstein, cello; Jason Yoder, marimba · 4 November 2009, White House, Washington, DC
    2:56

    Alisa Weilerstein plays The Swan, the thirteenth movement of Le Carnaval des animaux, at the White House with Jason Yoder, a sixteen-year-old marimba player. He plays the accompaniment on the marimba beneath her bowed melody.

    Listening notes
    1. Cello and marimba, White House, 2009

      Saint-⁠Saëns wrote a long cello melody over continuous broken chords. In this arrangement the chords go to a marimba. On 4 November 2009 at the White House, Jason Yoder played them with mallets on the instrument’s wooden bars, and Alisa Weilerstein played the cello line.

    2. White House performance, 2009

      Jason Yoder was sixteen when he joined the cellist Alisa Weilerstein for the White House’s Evening of Classical Music on 4 November 2009. The cello solo was played as a duet for cello and percussion.

    3. Final bars, cello

      In the closing bars the cello melody slows and ends on a high G. The accompaniment continues under the held note and goes on after it stops. Saint-⁠Saëns leaves the soloist silent at the end while the last broken chords complete the phrase.

    Open in the Concert Hall

More by Saint-⁠Saëns