The Carnival of the Animals cello solo (which evokes the swan elegantly gliding over the water) is played over rippling sixteenths in one piano and rolled chords in the other (said to represent the swan's feet, hidden from view beneath the water, propelling it along). A staple of the cello repertoire, this is one of the most well-known movements of the suite, usually in the version for cello with solo piano which was the only publication of this work in Saint-Saëns's lifetime. More than twenty other arrangements of this movement have also been published, with solo instruments ranging from flute to alto saxophone. A short
Wyclef Jean Presents The Carnival called "The Carnival" "a stunning solo album that's light years beyond "The Score"". He also wrote "In his universalist embrace of music of all forms, Wyclef Jean makes a more powerful call for peace and unity than a thousand East Coast-West Coast "Stop the violence, y'all" intros put together.""The Carnival" was voted the sixteenth best album of the year in "The Village Voice"s annual Pazz & Jop critics poll for 1997. Christgau, the poll's creator, ranked it twentieth on his own list. In 2011, "Rolling Stone" ranked "The Carnival" the 69th best album of the 1990s. "The Carnival" debuted at