(program)
Angel Records Recording, printed in the U.S.A.
Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921)
Carnival of the Animals (1886)
The Paris Conservatoire Orchestra, conducted by Georges Prêtre
Pianist: Aldo Ciccolini, Alexis Weissenberg
Carnival of the Animals
1. Introduction and Royal March of the Lion
2. Hens and Cocks 3. Wild Asses
4. Tortoises. 5. The Elephant
6. Kangaroos. 7. The Aquarium
8. Persons with Long Ears 9. Cuckoo in the Heart of the Wood
10. The Aviary 11. Pianists
12. Fossils. 13. The Swans. 14. Finale
Arirang, Arirang, Arariyo…
You are going over Arirang hill
My love, you are leaving me,
Your feet will be sore
before you reach ten ri.
‘Arirang’ - Korean folk song
Saint-Saëns originally composed his “Carnival of the Animals” in the form of a suite for two pianos. It was written in 1886 for a private family jollification; and although it was later orchestrated, Saint-Saëns refused to publish or perform it in public, as long as he lived, and it still contains some unexplained family jokes. “” Alfred Frankenstein, notes for the recording
Saint-Saën’s Carnival of the Animals—or as it might otherwise be called: The Swan, and Others—is a menagerie of sorts, at times clearly the result of private “jollification” and at times yielding to so profound a solemnity that it might very well pass for the national anthem of a country yet to be founded. there are fourteen pieces in total, each a brief slide with an average length of about a minute. each slide labeled, tongue-in-cheek, with such insinuating titles as ‘Hens and Cocks’, ‘Persons with long Ears’, ‘Pianists’ and so on. Saint-Saëns composed the collection in the same year as the Symphony No.3 from last week—with its thunderous atmosphere, its stark and terrifying colours —an impressive range of styles.
VII. Pianists. Pianists are animals who practise the C major scale. “” Alfred Frankenstein, notes for the recording
part of where I was trying to get to last week with Joni Mitchel’s “Nathan La Franeer” is an appreciation—rather that the easy and obvious frustration—of the battle of aesthetics always raging beneath the surface of a metropolitan scene. how often we find a particular style and expression smack next to its exact antithesis—an ultimately good thing, insofar as it doesn’t lead to the extinction of particularities… in fact it’s only natural, for in nature, too, we find one type smack next to its antipode, for better or for worse. on either sides of ‘The Swan’ in this suite are two species especially unlike the swan, preceded by “Fossils”: a bumbling fiesta on xylophone with passing references to the composer’s own Danse Macabre and a page out of The Barber of Seville. on the other side is “Finale” wherein all the animals (which apparently includes pianists) introduced earlier assemble for a group photo, a true carnival scene, something straight out of one of Fellini’s circus processions.
‘City Lights’ by Stephen Magsig, 2009
XIII. The Swan. Nobody needs to be told anything about this movement. Saint-Saëns exempted it from the ban of performance and publication during his lifetime, and it was popular as early as 1905, when Michel Fokine composed the solo dance to it with which Anna Pavlova swept the world. The rest of the suite was unknown to the public, however, until 1922, the year after Saint-Saëns’ death. “” Alfred Frankenstein, notes for the recording
there is a sublime virtue in the mentainance of the aforementioned battle of aesthetics. for to be neither completely in one camp or the other—in essence, to be able to write Carnival and the Organ Symphony in the same calendar year—to be at times a buffoon and a times elegant as evening, is not only necessity for city-life, but expedient everywhere else. to experiment with extremes, and not be afraid to pace frail-figured-grace lockstep with some proper circus animals, is the spirit of what Nietzsche meant by the practise of a gay science. to subscribe to a particular aesthetic is to become, whether consciously or unconsciously, hostile towards every other type—the trouble with such a dogmatic subscription are obvious and inescapable, except of-course if one’s particular aesthetic is akin to a carnival of wild and subtle animals:
Sharp and mild, rough and fine,
Strange and familiar, impure and clean,
A place where fool and sage convene:
All this I am and wish to mean,
Dove as well as snake and swine.
“” The Gay Science, Friedrich Nietzsche
(song of the week: ‘Arirang’ — Youn Sun Nah)
the working concept for this journal is pairing a classical work alongside a folk song; and most weeks my selection fits the mould of ‘folk’ music by only the skimpiest of margins. next to ‘world music’, folk music is about the most controversially defined genre. but if there’s one quintessential folk-song—that is, for my purposes heres, a song whose origin can’t be traced, that emerged out of a people’s collective conscience, and has since been treated with every possible variation by the various precincts that divide this population—that song would be ‘Arirang’: a Korean folk song of unidentified birth, debatable lyrics, and countless iterations scattered throughout the kaleidoscope of local dialects.
there isn’t, for one, an agreed-upon translation of what the word ‘Arirang’ means, though a so-named mountain pass seems to be the song’s point of reference. the Bonjo Arirang—from Seoul, one of the sixty different versions, and 3600 variations—is the most popular, and begins with the a refrain, quoted above, employed by most versions. it’s the version sung by Korean-French jazz artist Youn Sun Nah in this recording.
owing to the song’s universal popularity, it’s inevitable that there are a host of try-hard renditions that attempt to achieve the most ‘authentic’ Arirang, forging what they deem to be the most traditional sound, but instead delivering a hyperbolic performance in order to meet the modern gaze. what i like most about Youn Sun Nah’s version is how little effort she puts that direction, she sings the lyrics with an organic affectation and uses light jazz instrumentation (opening on xylophone) to update the music. one can’t help but wonder if that’s it for songs born of such spontaneous and organic generation, are we still capable of writing a ‘song of the people’ in 2020? how can a people so divided on the basic facts of reality nevertheless give birth to fellow-feeling, to folkiness?
Throwback to: YR1 Week50, YR2 Week50
Click here for the full 2019/2020 roster of composers