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private performances, typically for the French mid-Lent festival of , but Saint-Saëns was adamant that the work would not be published in his lifetime, seeing it as detracting from his "serious" composer image.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
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (album) Dindisc disputed this, saying the cost to the band for the sleeve was contractually fixed and Virgin took the expense. Reviews of "Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark" were positive. Paul Morley in the "New Musical Express" wrote: "How fine and different their melodies can be, how detailed and distinctive their song-structure... there is a constant change in emphasis and dynamics. It's definitely dance music. Orch Man's debut LP is one of the best of the year." "Melody Maker" journalist Ian Birch called the record "Unpretentious, tuneful and unceasingly pleasant". "Sounds" and "International Musician" also offered positive reviews. In a retrospective