MUSIC SCHOOL

By Yanchi Chen

Throughout history, musicians have imitated the sound of animals. We can hear this in Telemann’s Rossignol (Nightingale), Haydn’s "Le Matin" Symphony No. 6 which has tweeting birds in the first movement, and Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Flight of the Bumblebee.

What inspires musicians to copy the sounds of nature? Is it because the sound of nature is so beautiful, or because people want to communicate with natural sounds? Do musicians try to bridge the gap between humans and the nature? When humans moved into cities and further away from natural environments, we lost our connection and understanding of animals. Music is a way to help us imagine the way animals move and behave, even if we do not see them up close.

Saint-Saëns’s Carnival of the Animals is a good example because it was crafted to describe the qualities of animals. Each of the 14 movements represents a different animal, and when the movements are put together the work is a parade of color, sound, and images.

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VII Movement: Aquarium

The Aquarium movement depicts the ways that fish move in the water. The first piano opens the movement with a descending ostinato. Then the two pianos gently play intersecting arpeggios. These figures describe the ripple of the water’s surface in the glass aquarium. At the same time, flute and violin play a melody that suggests fish swimming leisurely in the water. Meanwhile, the glass harmonica repeats this theme with a slow half-beat, which sounds like sparkling fish scales. Towards the end, the glass harmonica shows the sun dazzling off the water. Saint-Saëns calls for changes in intensity throughout, depicting the waving of the water and the weaving of the fish in and out of shadows.

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XIII Movement: Le cygne (The Swan）

In this movement, Saint-Saëns chooses the cello to represent the swan. More than the other string instruments, the tone of the cello has melancholy beauty and deep longing. This piece is marked Andantino Grazioso, suggesting that a swan’s movements are slow and graceful. The cello theme opens with a falling 3-note motif that repeats throughout the melody. This gentle descent in half steps and leaps followed by the soft climb of a scale (0:20) suggests sadness. The harmony and melody are simple, with no ornamentation, depicting the visual simplicity of the swan’s white feathers. The music grows more intense (0:56) and the harmony becomes unstable. The music gets more turbulent, perhaps depicting splashing water. We might imagine that the swan flies (2:16) when the vibrato of the cello peaks. Finally, a clear piano arpeggio suggesting that the swan is gradually disappearing in the blue sky (2:50).

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Is Saint-Saëns' piece similar to going to a zoo?

Yes?
No?
Something else?

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I think it is similar because both focus attention on animals. In the zoo, however, cages hold the animals for us to see, and we experience the animals directly.

In the concert hall, the music presents the animals to our minds, and we experience the animals through the composer's imagination.

The music gives us the composer's idea of the animals.

I believe Saint-Saens' interpretation of the animals enhances our human relationship to the animals. He upgrades our own appreciation. When we look at the swan in the lake, we see the swan is swimming. When we listen to Saint-Saens’ music, its qualities deliver our feelings about the swan.

Musicologist Emily Doolittle says: “In both medieval and renaissance music, it was often the idea of the animal, as symbolized by the representative musical fragment, rather than the musical attributes of the animal song itself, that was of primary importance.” (Crickets in the Concert Hall: A History of Animals in Western Music). I believe this is also the case in Saint-Saens' Romantic character pieces in Carnival of the Animals.

The idea of the Swan is fidelity or purity. The music does not quote the swan’s song but describes its motion. It does not simply play a motif to signify "swan." Saint-Saëns’s music describes the swan’s motion and evokes swan’s noble nature. Treating the swan as a noble creature with a soul, not just as an ornament of nature. Saint-Saëns's musical elements serve the swan as a souled animal, which gives people a chance to understand the beauty of the swan and its participation in the world’s ecology.

Works Cited:

Emily Doolittle, “Crickets in the Concert Hall: A History of Animals in Western Music.” TRANS- Transcultural Music Review 12 (2008).

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MUSIC SCHOOL

VII Movement: Aquarium

XIII Movement: Le cygne (The Swan）

Is Saint-Saëns' piece similar to going to a zoo?

Works Cited:

Emily Doolittle, “Crickets in the Concert Hall: A History of Animals in Western Music.” TRANS- Transcultural Music Review 12 (2008).

VII Movement: Aquarium

XIII Movement: Le cygne (The Swan）