The Carnival of the Animals and xylophone. From the beginning, Saint-Saëns regarded the work as a piece of fun. On 9 February 1886 he wrote to his publishers Durand in Paris that he was composing a work for the coming Shrove Tuesday, and confessing that he knew he should be working on his Third Symphony, but that this work was "such fun" (). He had apparently intended to write the work for his students at the École Niedermeyer, but it was first performed at a private concert given by the cellist Charles Lebouc on Shrove Tuesday, 9 March 1886. A second (private) performance was given
Carnival in Bern In the 1980s, the original organizers of the modern carnival decided to use local history and to incorporate the famous bears of Bern into the modern carnival: thus they conceived of the idea of freeing the bears, thereby adding a modern idea based on the traditions of the city. Carnival in Bern The carnival in Bern, Switzerland () is an annual pre-Lenten festival in the Swabian-Alemannic tradition. Its origins can be traced back to the 15th century, and in 1513 the carnival led to a peasant revolt. The Bernese carnivals were held more or less regularly in medieval times, with