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 him want to become a DJ. McCluskey's distinctive onstage dance routine – dubbed by the BBC's Stuart Maconie as the "Trainee Teacher Dance" – has been influential. ZZ Top, who shared a studio with OMD on a 1980 edition of BBC2 show "The Old Grey Whistle Test", adopted the routine as part of their live set (and also played OMD's self-titled debut album over the PA prior to concerts). Maconie wrote that the "jerky, leg-snapping" dance became "the dance-floor routine of choice" for teaching students in the early-to-mid 1980s. Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD)