Carnival of the Animals – Camille Saint-saens

Week 1: Carnival of the Animals – Bird Songs

Teaching Objective
Listen and respond to music that imitates the sound of birds and learn about the instruments the
composer chose to represent their songs, exploring the characteristics of Carnival of the Animals.

Resources
Recording of Carnival of the Animals by Camille Saint-Saens
Pictures of flute, bassoon, violin, clarinet, and piano
Pictures of hens, roosters, the aviary, a swan and a cuckoo

Vocabulary
Aviary - A place where flying birds can be kept confined

Lesson
Discuss the physical characteristics of birds, where they live, and what they do. The composer used
different instruments to create sounds of different birds. Listen to the different movements
showing pictures of instruments that represent the different birds. Children to name and match the
instruments used to describe the birds.

Week 2: Carnival of the Animals- Fossils

Teaching Objective
Discover what a fossil is and how it can be portrayed by music.

Resources
Recording of "Fossils" from Carnival of the Animals
Sound clip of a xylophone
Images of fossils and xylophone

Vocabulary
Fossil - A remnant or trace of an animal or plant of long ago that has been preserved in the earth
Archaeologist - A person who studies the fossils and remains of past human life

Lesson
Explain to the children that in many places, bones from animals and the remains of plants that lived
long ago can be found in the earth. These are called fossils. The people who study fossils are called
archaeologists. An archaeologist puts fossil pieces together to discover what kind of animal or plant
they were. He/she looks at everything found at the fossil site and is able to describe what life may
have been like a long time ago. Listen to movement ‘Fossils’ whilst looking at pictures of fossils.

Fossils – xylophone (hollow brittle wooden sound that is perfect to describe a fossil.).

Week 3: Carnival of the Animals- Animal Safari

Teaching Objective
Students will research, listen to music, and present information to the class about an animal from
Carnival of the Animals, as well as evaluate whether or not the music portrayed its characteristics.
Resources
Books about animals
Toy animals
Recording of Carnival of the Animals

Lesson
Have children choose an animal from the following list:, Elephant, Lion, Kangaroo, Fish, Donkey,
Tortoise. Look at book and toy of chosen animal. Have each child draw a picture of their chosen
animal.
Listen to Carnival of the Animals, telling children when the music for their animal is being played.

Week 4: Carnival of the Animals- How Many Ways?

Teaching Objective
Discover that animals can be described in both verbal and nonverbal ways.

Vocabulary
Describe- tell about
Pantomime- imitate (pretend to be) without speaking

Resources
Drawing paper
Crayons or markers
Excerpt from Carnival of the Animals

Lesson
Write the name of an animal (chosen from Carnival of the Animals) known to the children on the board.
Children to find the corresponding picture listen to that piece of music and show the corresponding
instrument. Repeat for the other animals. Children will match animals and instruments.

Week 5: Carnival of the Animals- Move Like Animals

Teaching Objective
Explore the concepts of fast-slow, big-little, and high-low while moving to music.

Resources
Recording of Carnival of the Animals
Pictures of animals featured in Carnival of the Animals

Lesson
Using pictures of animals from Carnival of the Animals, children will choose an animal. How big is it?
How does it move? Does it move fast or slow? What kind of sound does it make? Ask children to
act/move like the animal - big, little, flat, round, etc; very fast or very slowly. Practise making high
sounds (like a bird) and low sounds (like an elephant). Children will imitate the animal while the music
for that animal is playing. Watch the finale.
Background information for Carnival of the Animals (taken from Wikipedia)

Hens and Roosters - Strings without cello and double-bass, two pianos, with clarinet:
This movement is centered around a pecking theme played in the pianos and strings, which is quite
reminiscent of chickens pecking at grain. The clarinet plays small solos above the rest of the players at
intervals.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52qZaOdDo9w&feature=related (52 seconds)

Wild Asses; quick animals - Two pianos:

The animals depicted here are quite obviously running, an image induced by the constant, feverishly
fast up-and-down motion of both pianos playing scales in octaves.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmdddyedNJc&feature=related (40 seconds)

Tortoises - Strings and piano:

A slightly satirical movement which opens with a piano playing a pulsing triplet figure in the higher
register. The strings play a maddeningly slow rendition of the famous 'Can-Can' from Offenbach's
operetta Orpheus in the Underworld, as mentioned below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPvyVkbsRYY&feature=related (1 min 51)

The Elephant - Double-bass and piano:

This section is marked Allegro Pomposo, the perfect caricature for an elephant. The piano plays a
waltz-like triplet figure while the bass hums the melody beneath it. Like "Tortues," this is also a
musical joke - the thematic material is taken from Felix Mendelssohn's Incidental Music to A
Midsummer Night's Dream and Hector Berlioz's Dance of the Sylphs. The two themes were both
originally written for high, lighter-toned instruments (flute and various other woodwinds, and violin,
accordingly); the joke is that Saint-Saëns moves this to the lowest and heaviest-sounding instrument
in the orchestra, the double bass.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOEYhQvRSE0&NR=1 (1 min 34)

Kangaroos - Two pianos:

The main figure here is a pattern of 'hopping' fifths preceded by grace notes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J81BUcphm3E&feature=related (59 seconds)

Aquarium - Strings without double-bass, two pianos, flute, and glass armonica:
This is one of the more musically rich movements. The melody is played by the flute, backed by the
strings, on top of tumultuous, glissando-like runs in the piano. The first piano plays a descending ten-
on-one ostinato, while the second plays a six-on-one. These figures, plus the occasional glissando from
the armonica—often played on celesta or glockenspiel—are evocative of a peaceful, dimly-lit aquarium.
According to British music journalist Fritz Spiegl, there is a recording of the movement featuring
virtuoso harmonica player Tommy Reilly - apparently he was hired by mistake instead of a player of the
glass armonica.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdJm_WmwNOs&feature=related (2 mins 01)

Characters with Long Ears - Three violins:

This is the shortest of all the movements. The violins alternate playing high, loud notes and low,
buzzing ones (in the manner of a donkey's braying "hee-haw").
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Qo0SHyqDew&feature=related (44 seconds)

The Cuckoo in the Depths of the Woods - Two pianos and clarinet:
The pianos play large, soft chords while the clarinet plays a single two-note ostinato, over and over; a C
and an A flat, mimicking the call of a cuckoo bird.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zv7bbr4s7N0&feature=related (2mins)

Aviary - Strings, piano and flute:

The high strings take on a background role, providing a buzz in the background that is reminiscent of
the background noise of a jungle. The cellos and basses play a pick up cadence to lead into most of the
measures. The flute takes the part of the bird, with a trilling tune that spans much of its range. The
pianos provide occasional ping and trills of other birds in the background. The movement ends very
quietly after a long ascending scale from the flute.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxIw-bGTHVo&feature=related (1 min 18)

Pianists - Strings and two pianos:

This movement is a glimpse of what few audiences ever get to see: the pianists practicing their scales.
The scales of C, D flat, D and E flat are covered. Each one starts with a trill on the first and second
note, then proceeds in scales with a few changes in the rhythm. Transitions between keys are
accomplished with a blasting chord from all the instruments between scales. After the four scales, the
key changes back to C, where the pianos play a trill-like pattern in thirds while the strings play a small
part underneath. This movement is unusual in that the last three blasted chords do not resolve the
piece, but rather lead into the next movement, with a pattern similar to the chords that lead from the
second to the third movements of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xiahFZAU9s&feature=related (1 min 22)

Fossils - Strings, two pianos, clarinet, and xylophone:

Here, Saint-Saëns mimics his own composition, the Danse Macabre, which makes heavy use of the
xylophone to evoke the image of skeletons playing card games, the bones clacking together to the
beat. The musical themes from Danse Macabre are also quoted; the xylophone and the violin play much
of the melody, alternating with the piano and clarinet. The piano part is especially difficult here -
octaves that jump in quick thirds. Allusions to "Ah! vous dirai-je, Maman" (better known in the English-
speaking world as Twinkle Twinkle Little Star), the French nursery rhymes "Au Clair de la Lune" and
"J'ai du bon tabac", the popular anthem Partant pour la Syrie as well as the aria Una Voce Poco Fa
from Rossini's Barber of Seville can also be heard. The musical joke in this movement is that the
musical pieces quoted are the fossils of his time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD9gAyyd6wE&feature=related (1 min 26)

The Swan - Two pianos and cello:

This is by far the most famous movement of the suite, often performed solo and is used to showcase
the interpretive skills of the cellist. The lushly romantic cello solo (which evokes the swan elegantly
gliding over the water) is played over rippling sixteenths in one piano and rolled chords in the other
(representing the swan's feet, hidden from view beneath the water, propelling it along).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MTXpaD5QKo&feature=related (2 min 44)

The finale: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cck-QHtDuNA&feature=related (2 min 37)