Saint-Saëns, Camille

The Carnival of the Animals, the work from which this most perfect and evocative of melodies comes, was strangely not permitted to be published or performed in the composers lifetime. Here arranged for string quartet by Carlo Martelli, Saint-Saëns considered it a mere piece of persiflage and unworthy of him.

The famous aria, from which this arrangement by Carlo Martelli is derived, occurs in the second act of the opera Samson and Delilah, in which Samson is seduced by Delilah to trick him into being captured by his enemies. For colleges, conservatories and professionals.

The devil summons the dead from their graves with his fiddle, and skeletons clatter about in waltz rhythm - a scene skilfully evoked by the composer, and here translated to the quartet medium with equal talent by the arranger Carlo Martelli. For colleges, conservatories and professionals.

This music in this arrangement by Carlo Martelli accompanies the drunken and riotous revelry of the Philistines celebrating their capture of Samson after his betrayal by Delilah, in Act 3 of Saint-Saëns opera.