The Carnival of the Animals on 2 April at the home of Pauline Viardot with an audience including Franz Liszt, a friend of the composer, who had expressed a wish to hear the work. There were other private performances, typically for the French mid-Lent festival of , but Saint-Saëns was adamant that the work would not be published in his lifetime, seeing it as detracting from his "serious" composer image. He relented only for the famous cello solo "The Swan", which forms the penultimate movement of the work, and which was published in 1887 in an arrangement by the composer for cello and solo piano
Mainz carnival to use for the next 50 years. In later years many new associations arose: the "Mombacher Carneval Verein" (1886), the "Gonsenheimer Carneval Verein" (1892) and the Carnival association „Eiskalte Brüder“ (1893). As Guards, the "Mainzer Prinzengarde" (1884), the "Prinzessgarde" (1886), renamed in 1933 as "Guard of the Princess", the "Mombacher Prinzengarde" (1886) and the "Jocus-Garde" (1889) were added. Traditionally, carnival season in Mainz begins on November 11 at 11:11, and continues through Ash Wednesday. However, the event peaks in February or March in the days leading up to Ash Wednesday. During the 19th century celebrants began using the carnival as