El carnaval de los animales
El carnaval de los animales (Francés: Le carnaval des animaux) es una suite musical en 14 movimientos compuesta por el compositor romántico/música romántica francés Camille Saint-Saëns.
Historia
Le Carnaval fue compuesto en febrero de 1886, mientras Saint-Saëns veraneaba en un pequeño pueblo de Austriaco. Originalmente, fue concebida para un grupo de cámara compuesto de flauta, clarinete, dos pianos, glass harmonica, xilófono, dos violines, viola, violonchelo y contrabajo, pero también se suele interpretar hoy en la versión para orquesta de cuerda, y con un glockenspiel en sustitución del más raro glass harmonica.
Saint-Saëns, según parece temeroso de que la obra resultara demasiado frívola y pudiera perjudicar su reputación de compositor serio, prohibió las interpretaciones públicas de la misma y sólo autorizó la publicación en vida de un movimiento, Le Cygne. Sólo se dieron interpretaciones privadas para un círculo de amigos íntimos, como Franz Liszt.
Sin embargo, Saint-Saëns dispuso en su testamento que la suite podría ser publicada tras su muerte, y desde entonces se ha convertido en una de sus obras más populares. Es una de las preferidas de profesores y jóvenes alumnos de música, junto con Pedro y el Lobo de Prokofiev y The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra de Britten.
Contenido
Una interpretación tipo dura unos 20-25 minutos. Se compone de catorce movimientos:
- I- Introduction et marche royal du Lion (Introducción y marcha real del León)
(Para dos pianos y la sección de cuerda al completo) The introduction begins with the pianos playing a bold tremolo, under which the strings enter with a stately theme. The pianos play a pair of scales going in opposite directions to conclude the first part of the movement. The pianos then introduce a march theme that they carry through most of the rest of the introduction. The strings provide the melody, with the pianos occasionally taking low runs of octaves or high ostinatos. The movement ends with a fortissimo note from all the instruments used in this movement.
- II- Poules et Coqs (Gallinas y gallos)
(Para los mismos efectivos que el primer movimiento, pero sin contrabajo y con la añadidura de un clarinete) 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.
- III- Hémiones (animaux véloces) (Ardillas (animales veloces))
(Para dos 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.
- IV- Tortues (Tortugas)
(Para piano y cuerda) 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, as mentioned below.
- V- L'Éléphant (El elefante)
(Para piano y el contrabajo) 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.
- VI- Kangourous (Canguros)
(Para dos pianos) The main figure here is a pattern of 'hopping' fifths preceded by grace notes
- VII- Aquarium
(Para flauta, harmonica, pianos y toda la cuerda excepto el contrabajo) This is one of the more musically rich movements. The melody is played by the flute, backed by the strings, on top of tumultous, 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, are very evocative of a peaceful, dimly-lit aquarium. This intermittent section where the pianos play high sixteenths is reminiscent of parts of Tchaikovsky's ballet, The Nutcracker
- VIII- Personnages à longues oreilles (Personajes con largas orejas)
(Para dos violines) This is surely the least lyrical of the pieces; the violins alternate playing high, shrill screeches and low, buzzing notes that can hardly be considered melodious.
- IX- Le coucou au fond des bois (El cuco en lo profundo del bosque)
(Para dos pianos y clarinete) The pianos play large, soft chords while the clarinet plays a single ostinato, over and over; a D and a B flat, mimicking the call of a Cuckoo bird.
- X- Volière (Pajarera)
(Para flauta, dos pianos y cuerda) 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 'pings' and trills of other birds in the background. The movement ends very quietly after a long ascending scale from the flute.
- XI- Pianistes (Pianistas)
(Para dos pianos y cuerda) 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 procedes in scales with a few changes in the rhythm. Transitions between keys are acomplished 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 Third Piano Concerto.
- XII- Fossiles (Fósiles)
(Para clarinete, xilófono, dos pianos y cuerda) Here, Saint-Saëns mimics his own composition, the Danse Macabre, which makes heavy use of the xylophone to evoke the image of skeletons dancing, the bones clacking together to the beat. The musical themes from Danse Macabre are also quoted; the xylophone plays much of the melody, alternating with the piano and clarinet. The piano part is especially difficult here - octaves that jump in very quick thirds.
- XIII- Le Cygne (El cisne)
(Para violonchelo y dos pianos) This is by far the most famous movement of the suite, often performed separately from the rest by a virtuoso cellist to showcase his interpretive skills. The lushly romantic cello solo is played over rippling sixteenths in one piano and rolled chords in the other.
- XIV- Finale
(Para el grupo al completo: flauta, clarinete, harmonica, xilófono, dos pianos y cuerda) The Finale opens on the same tremolo notes in the pianos as in the introduction, which are soon reinforced by the wind instruments, the harmonica and the xylophone. The strings build the tension with a few low notes, leading to glissandi by the piano, then a pause before the lively main melody is introduced. This movement is somewhat reminiscent of an Americal carnival from the middle of the twentieth century, with one piano always maintaining a bouncy eighth note rhythm. Although the melody is relativly simple, the supporting harmonies are ornamented in the style that is very typical of Saint-Saëns' compositions for piano; dazzling scales, glissandi and trills. Many of the previous movements are quoted here: The Introduction, The Wild Asses, The Hens, and The Kangaroos. The work ends with a strong group of C Major chords.
Referencias musicales
Como sugiere el título, la obra sigue un música programática zoología y va desde el primer movimiento ("Introducción y marcha real del León"), pasando por los retratos del elefante y el burro ("Personajes con largas orejas") hasta el finale, que retoma muchos de los temas anteriores.
Varios de los movimientos contienen guiños humorísticos:
- "Pianistas" describe a unos estudiantes de piano mientras practican sus escalas.
- "Tortugas" utiliza de manera ingeniosa el conocido can-can de la operetta de Jacques Offenbach Orfeo en los Infiernos, tocando la habitualmente dislocada melodía a un tempo inusualmente lento y pausado.
- "L'Éléphant" es la "Dance des sylphes" de Hector Berlioz en una tesitura mucho más grave que el original, a manera de solo para el contrabajo.
- "L'Éléphant" también cita brevemente el Scherzo de "El sueño de una noche de verano" de Felix Mendelssohn. Se escucha al final de la sección que sirve de puente modulante.
- "Fósiles" cita la Danza macabra del propio Saint-Saëns, así como dos canciones infantiles, J'ai du bon tabac y Ah ! vous dirai-je, Maman (Campanitas del lugar), y también el aria de Rosina de El barbero de Sevilla
- Se cree que la sección de los 'Personajes con largas orejas' va dirigida a los críticos musicales: también son los últimos animales que se escuchan en la apoteosis final, rebuznando.
Referencias culturales de El carnaval de los animales
The ballet The Dying Swan is choreographed to the Swan section.
Ogden Nash wrote a set of humorous verses to accompany each movement, which are often recited when the work is performed. The conclusion of the verse for the "Fossils", for example, fits perfectly with the punchline-like first bar of the music:
- Last night in the museum hall
- The fossils gathered for a ball
- There were no drums or saxophones,
- But just the clatter of their bones,
- A rolling, rattling, carefree circus
- Of mammoth polkas and mazurkas.
- Pterodactyls and brontosauruses
- Sang ghostly prehistoric choruses.
- Amid the mastodonic wassail
- I caught the eye of one small fossil.
- Cheer up, sad world, he said, and winked-
- It's kind of fun to be extinct.
Throughout the long-running Carry On Films, the elephant was used as the signature tune for the characters played by Hattie Jacques, when they first appeared on screen.
In 1976 Warner Brothers produced a television special featuring The Carnival of the Animals with Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck playing the dual pianos (it opened with Bugs and Daffy arguing over the pronunciation of the composer's name--Camille Saint-Saëns or Camel Saynt Saynes).
In 1999, Walt Disney Feature Animation incorporated the Finale into Fantasia 2000. In the film, a flock of flamingos is annoyed by another flamingo with a yo-yo. The music was recorded by James Levine conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
Aquarium is used as the opening and closing theme in the 1992 documentary, Visions of Light.
A surf-rock version of Aquarium covered by Dick Dale was used as the theme song of the Space Mountain roller coaster at Disneyland in California from 1996 to 2003.
The Swan is used in the 2005 film My Summer of Love by P. Pawlikowski. Tamsin performs it on her cello when Mona visits her house for the first time.
Aquarium is featured in the trailer for the 2006 film Charlotte's Web, and appears to be one of the influences on the main theme in Walt Disney's Beauty and the Beast. It is also the opening theme music to the 1978 film Days of Heaven. In the Simpsons episode The Wife Aquatic, the music is played thoughout.
Australian/British classical crossover string quartet Bond remade a version of Aquarium.