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private performances, typically for the French mid-Lent festival of , but Saint-Saëns was adamant that the work would not be published in his lifetime, seeing it as detracting from his "serious" composer image.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
Carnival in the Netherlands and Vorarlberg (Western Austria). It traditionally represents the time of year when the reign of the cold, grim winter spirits is over and these spirits are being driven out and expelled by the Carnaval rituals. Also the ritual re-enactment of the Wild Hunt was a cultural phenomenon among many Gallic and Germanic peoples. There is evidence that the ancient Roman festivals of Saturnalia and Bacchanalia may have been absorbed into the Italian carnival, while other scholars say that there is insufficient evidence to draw any connection between these festivals and the modern Christian Carnival. The Saturnalia, in turn, may be