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 Mexico in 1945 and was the first night parade in the city ever. The Veracruz Carnival tradition has since spread to the neighboring Tuxpan, which attracts about 50,000 visitors held at the city’s fairgrounds each year. Today, Veracruz has the largest and best known Carnival in Mexico beginning with the “quema del mal humor” or the burning of bad mood and ending with the burial of “Juan Carnival.” The quema de mal humor is represented by an effigy of a disliked famous person, either Mexican or foreign. Juan Carnival is another effigy which receives a mock funeral. In between there are