If you aren’t already familiar with the work in its entirety, we suspect you’ll recognize more than one or two of the movements!

The Carnival of the Animals (Le Carnaval des animaux) is a gorgeous and lyrical piece of music.

The work, about 25 minutes in duration, was composed by Mr. Saint-Saëns in 1886 while he took a vacation in a small, beautiful Austrian village. The fanciful suite features 14 different movements, each one featuring an animal or group of animals.

From the beginning he regarded the work as a piece of fun. In the past century and a half, the work has become one of the romantic-era composer’s most famous works; an irony because he was a bit embarrassed about it being published at all.

Carnival of the Animals is typically the first of Saint-Saëns’ compositions a classical music lover ever hears and is considered one of his best works.

Thus, it’s hard for contemporary musicians and audiences to believe his reluctance to publish and perform the work. Instead, Saint-Saëns struck a deal that the piece would not be published or performed (with one exception noted below) until after his death, which didn’t occur for another 34 years.

In 1949 Ogden Nash wrote a set of humorous verses to accompany each movement for a Columbia Masterworks recording of Carnival of the Animals conducted by Andre Kostelanetz. They were recited by Noël Coward with the New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall, New York, in 1956.