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 it is known today was introduced in 1982, and is unique because it incorporates the city's history by beginning the carnival with the symbolic freeing of the bear. The carnival in Bern in the country's third largest such celebration. Carnival was established in Bern during the medieval period. In Bern, the term for carnival is either "Fasnacht" or "Fastnacht" which means on the eve of fasting. Before the beginning of Lent, or the 40-day fasting period, feasts and folk-festivals were commonly held. During the 15th, century Bern began to grow in importance, and in the 1420s during a carnival the