Camille Saint-Saëns - Aquarium

Le Carnaval des Animaux (The Carnival of the Animals) is a musical suite of fourteen movements by the French Romantic composer Camille Saint-Saëns.

Le Carnaval was composed in February 1886 while Saint-Saëns was vacationing in a small Austrian village. It was originally scored for a chamber group of flute, clarinet, two pianos, glass harmonica, xylophone, two violins, viola, cello and double bass, but is usually performed today with a full orchestra of strings, and with a glockenspiel substituting for the rare glass harmonica.

Saint-Saëns, apparently concerned that the piece was too frivolous and likely to harm his reputation as a serious composer, suppressed performances of it and only allowed one movement, Le Cygne, to be published in his lifetime. Only small private performances were given for close friends like Franz Liszt.

Saint-Saëns did, however, include a provision which allowed the suite to be published after his death, and it has since become one of his most popular works. It is a favorite of music teachers and young children, along with Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf and Britten's The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra.

Aquarium

Strings without double-bass, two pianos, flute, and glass harmonica: 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 harmonica—often played on celesta or glockenspiel—are evocative of a peaceful, dimly-lit aquarium.
[from Wikipedia]


Artwork:Leonora Carrington

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Camile
• Saint
• Saens
• carnival
• of
• the
• animals
• aquarium

[warriorfight111]

when i hear this, i think of a city street, at night, after it has just stopped raining, the cobble-stones are wet and there is a lamp-post at the end of the street, illuminating the mist nearby.

[zbt518]

This movement of Le Carnival des Animaux to me seems to embody perfectly the mood of an awestruck child standing before a vast, deep tank of curious-looking, beautiful and fantastical (even more so because they're real) sea creatures, like jellyfish or cuttlefish. Further, the mood could be applied to any sense of amazement, and captivated wonderment experienced by any person when watching something intricate and inexplicably beautiful. In Layman's terms, when your mind is blissfully blown.

[CautionLlama]

Beauty and the beast

[awesomeirishmen123]

@bryanjht wat? NO shutup

[DrStrangefate]

@mefistogirl

It wasn't.

Though John Williams does take alot of cues from famous Romantic period composers works.

You can hear the influences of people like Stravinsky, Holst, Mahler, Wagner, Saint Saens and the like in his various work.

[dradoczy]

This music is more than brilliant!

When I hear it I just imagine lots of fishes swimming in the deep ocean.

[Detroitbcn]

Lovely

[Nobodyknowsme021]

Hauntingly beautiful, I might just have found another favorite classical composer who isn't Russian.

[4tt1]

@MadHatterz7 because this is more than just a melody , than just a song

[MadHatterz7]

@4tt1 why the scariest?