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
The Orchestral Tubular Bells The Orchestral Tubular Bells The Orchestral Tubular Bells is an orchestral version of Mike Oldfield's album "Tubular Bells", arranged by David Bedford and recorded in 1974 by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, featuring Oldfield himself playing the guitar. Excerpts from the album were featured in the 1979 NASA film, "The Space Movie". It peaked at #17 on the UK Albums Chart in 1975. In 2000 it was reissued by Virgin as a HDCD and is the only one of Mike's 1970s albums yet to be reissued by Mercury Records. The main difference between "Tubular Bells" and the orchestrated version is that