Carnival Of The Animals
Saint-Saens / Carnival Of The Animals
IBert / Divertissement
Felix Slatkin conducting The Concert Arts Orchestra
Capitol Records P8270
1954
From the back cover: Any commentary on French music is bound sooner or later to find itself concerned with such qualities as "Gallic wit," the "clarity" of French thought, "intellectual restraint," "refinement of emotion," and "keen sense of balance." The "spirit of the boulevards" is also likely to clamor for the commentator's attention. If the commentator is sensitive, he will endeavor at all costs to avoid using these clichés. If he is clever, he will succeed. But if he succeeds, he is not likely to bring his readers into very great intimacy with the plain facts about French music. For the plainest of those facts is that French music, especially if it be in the lighter vein, is witty, gay, clearly thought out and enunciated, intellectually restrained, and wonderfully balanced. It is necessary to remember that clichés achieve their status not only because they are overused, but also because they are true.
We may therefore apply the clichés to Camille Saint- Saëns and Jacques Ibert and then pass on to other matters.
Another matter respecting Saint-Saëns is that he wrote, in addition to The Carnival of the Animals, a great deal of very serious music – operas, symphonies, symphonic poems, cantatas, chamber music, and one score for a motion picture entitled L'Assassinat du duc de Guise. Romain Rolland noted that Saint-Saëns had the rare distinction of becoming a classic during his own lifetime. Certainly he was laden with fame and honors. He was a member of the Academy of Fine Arts and of the Institute; he received the order of the Legion of Honor; and he had an honorary degree from Cambridge University. The dignity of his position in the world of French music – his opus numbers run to 169-must be kept in mind as we consider the curious history of The Carnival of the Animals.
This highly diverting work (most French music is "highly diverting") was composed in February 1886. It was written for the composer's intimate circle of friends. After its first performance, which was strictly private, it began to be talked about publicly. We need not, on that account, presume that the guests revealed the "secret" of the Carnival to any but their most intimate friends. News does travel. It was even whispered to Franz Liszt as he was passing through Paris. He prevailed upon Mme. Viardot to prevail upon Saint-Saëns to let him hear this zoological fantasy. Another private performance was therefore arranged. This was followed by still others during the next several years – without, however, jeopardizing the work's standing as a "private" composition.
One day Saint-Saëns decided that even private performances would henceforth be forbidden. But in his will (he died in December 1921) he provided for the lifting of the ban. The following year the work was published. Its "privacy" had been maintained for 36 years.
Its suppression by the composer now appears to have been an act of exaggerated delicacy, for nothing in the music could possibly have offended anyone. Nor could anything in it have reflected unfavorably upon the composer. Only blue-noses would have mistaken the fun for irresponsible levity. The fun arises out of the composer's distortions of familiar music. In "Tortoises" he quotes two familiar tunes from Offenbach's Orpheus, but at a fraction of the Offenbach tempo and with "wrong" harmonies, dynamics, and instrumentation. In "The Elephant" he quotes from Dance of the Sylphs and Midsummer Night's Dream, assigning to one of the clumsiest of instruments what Berlioz and Mendelssohn had scored for the lightest and most graceful. Among his "Fossils" are his own Danse Macabre in a squared rhythm, Rosina's aria from The Barber of Seville, and three folk songs. In addition he permits himself, by including pianists in his zoological collection, to make some ironic comments on the embry- onic virtuosi whose practicing seems to have cost him many hours of rest. At the very worst, these procedures could be judged irreverent. On the other hand, it might have been irreverence that the composer could not permit himself to be accused of. One cannot become a classic during one's lifetime without paying some price.
If Jacques Ibert is not yet a classic, he is at least a very well known and respected composer. In Paris he has been closely associated with the most sophisticated groups of artists, not least of all with Auric, Milhaud, Honegger, Poulenc, Sauget – all of them composers of his own generation. Of his compositions, Escales (Ports of Cal") has been a standard work of the modern repertory for thirty years. He is a prolific composer and a worker in all media, from opera to songs, and from huge stage productions to chamber music of the slightest dimensions. Living in a more mechanized age than that of Saint-Saëns, he has written a large number of film scores, many of them for the René Clair films.
Ibert wears rather lightly the dignity of his official posi- tion as director of the French Academy at Rome – "I hate administration" he is reported to have said. He is also an assistant director of the Paris Opera, a position that he no doubt finds very congenial –"I live for two things: music and the theater," he added to the comment quoted above.
The Divertissement was composed in 1931 for small chamber orchestra. Like the Carnival it was conceived. in light-hearted "Parisian" fun, but it is pure music, with no pictorial or zoological program to guide its course. The surprising quotation of two measures of Mendelssohn's Wedding March in the Cortège appears to have no motive other than musical, though Ibert's future biographer, whoever he may be, will doubtless provide one even if he has to invent it. The Valse movement contains a mischievous, if not malicious, parody of the Viennese waltz style, and only in the Nocturne does the gaiety subside, as the composer lingers over a quiet melody. The Finale, after a piano cadenza made up of clusters of major seconds, proceeds into a typically Offenbachian can-can in which the conventional orchestra part sets in relief the piano's dissonant tones – a suitably jaunty conclusion to this joyful work.
We may therefore apply the clichés to Camille Saint- Saëns and Jacques Ibert and then pass on to other matters.
Another matter respecting Saint-Saëns is that he wrote, in addition to The Carnival of the Animals, a great deal of very serious music – operas, symphonies, symphonic poems, cantatas, chamber music, and one score for a motion picture entitled L'Assassinat du duc de Guise. Romain Rolland noted that Saint-Saëns had the rare distinction of becoming a classic during his own lifetime. Certainly he was laden with fame and honors. He was a member of the Academy of Fine Arts and of the Institute; he received the order of the Legion of Honor; and he had an honorary degree from Cambridge University. The dignity of his position in the world of French music – his opus numbers run to 169-must be kept in mind as we consider the curious history of The Carnival of the Animals.
This highly diverting work (most French music is "highly diverting") was composed in February 1886. It was written for the composer's intimate circle of friends. After its first performance, which was strictly private, it began to be talked about publicly. We need not, on that account, presume that the guests revealed the "secret" of the Carnival to any but their most intimate friends. News does travel. It was even whispered to Franz Liszt as he was passing through Paris. He prevailed upon Mme. Viardot to prevail upon Saint-Saëns to let him hear this zoological fantasy. Another private performance was therefore arranged. This was followed by still others during the next several years – without, however, jeopardizing the work's standing as a "private" composition.
One day Saint-Saëns decided that even private performances would henceforth be forbidden. But in his will (he died in December 1921) he provided for the lifting of the ban. The following year the work was published. Its "privacy" had been maintained for 36 years.
Its suppression by the composer now appears to have been an act of exaggerated delicacy, for nothing in the music could possibly have offended anyone. Nor could anything in it have reflected unfavorably upon the composer. Only blue-noses would have mistaken the fun for irresponsible levity. The fun arises out of the composer's distortions of familiar music. In "Tortoises" he quotes two familiar tunes from Offenbach's Orpheus, but at a fraction of the Offenbach tempo and with "wrong" harmonies, dynamics, and instrumentation. In "The Elephant" he quotes from Dance of the Sylphs and Midsummer Night's Dream, assigning to one of the clumsiest of instruments what Berlioz and Mendelssohn had scored for the lightest and most graceful. Among his "Fossils" are his own Danse Macabre in a squared rhythm, Rosina's aria from The Barber of Seville, and three folk songs. In addition he permits himself, by including pianists in his zoological collection, to make some ironic comments on the embry- onic virtuosi whose practicing seems to have cost him many hours of rest. At the very worst, these procedures could be judged irreverent. On the other hand, it might have been irreverence that the composer could not permit himself to be accused of. One cannot become a classic during one's lifetime without paying some price.
If Jacques Ibert is not yet a classic, he is at least a very well known and respected composer. In Paris he has been closely associated with the most sophisticated groups of artists, not least of all with Auric, Milhaud, Honegger, Poulenc, Sauget – all of them composers of his own generation. Of his compositions, Escales (Ports of Cal") has been a standard work of the modern repertory for thirty years. He is a prolific composer and a worker in all media, from opera to songs, and from huge stage productions to chamber music of the slightest dimensions. Living in a more mechanized age than that of Saint-Saëns, he has written a large number of film scores, many of them for the René Clair films.
Ibert wears rather lightly the dignity of his official posi- tion as director of the French Academy at Rome – "I hate administration" he is reported to have said. He is also an assistant director of the Paris Opera, a position that he no doubt finds very congenial –"I live for two things: music and the theater," he added to the comment quoted above.
The Divertissement was composed in 1931 for small chamber orchestra. Like the Carnival it was conceived. in light-hearted "Parisian" fun, but it is pure music, with no pictorial or zoological program to guide its course. The surprising quotation of two measures of Mendelssohn's Wedding March in the Cortège appears to have no motive other than musical, though Ibert's future biographer, whoever he may be, will doubtless provide one even if he has to invent it. The Valse movement contains a mischievous, if not malicious, parody of the Viennese waltz style, and only in the Nocturne does the gaiety subside, as the composer lingers over a quiet melody. The Finale, after a piano cadenza made up of clusters of major seconds, proceeds into a typically Offenbachian can-can in which the conventional orchestra part sets in relief the piano's dissonant tones – a suitably jaunty conclusion to this joyful work.
Felix Slatkin displays superb musicianship in two roles: as a performer, he is first violinist of the famed Hollywood String Quartet and concertmaster of the Twentieth Century-Fox Orchestra; as a conductor, he directs fine performances by the Concert Arts Orchestra, featuring such excellent soloists as those heard on this record – Elanor Aller, cello; Arthur Gleghorn, flute; and Victor Aller and Harry Sukman, piano.
Carnival Of The Animals
Introduction and Royal March Of The Lions
Hens And Cocks
Wild Jackasses
Tortoises
The Elephant
Kangaroos
Aquarium
Persons With Long Ears
The Cuckoo In The Forrest
Aviary
Pianists
Fossils
The Swan
Finale
Divertissement
Introduction
Cortege
Nocturne
Valse
Parade
Finale
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