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
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark journalist said: "If Kraftwerk were the Elvis Presley of synth-pop, then Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark were its Beatles." In 2008, American publication "The A.V. Club" noted that McCluskey and Humphreys were "often labeled as the 'Lennon-McCartney of synth-pop'." In a 2008 piece on OMD, "The Quietus" magazine editor John Doran called them "the only Liverpool band to come near to living up to the monolithic standards of productivity and creativity set in place by the Beatles", and asserted: "Orchestral Manouevres in the Dark are not one of the best synth bands ever: they are one of the best bands