The thirtieth classical recording: #450 Camille Saint-Saëns - Carnival of the Animals
This piece written "for fun" sets itself an interesting challenge: 14 movements representing fourteen animals, which should sound like a single work but have to represent different animals. Elephants sound heavy, tortoises are slow, and there's hopping in the kangaroo section. It's fun, it's amusing to listen to and it really is evocative enough to give you an impression of the animal - I might not get them without help, but I could probably match a list of animals to the movements. There are injokes we're starting to recognise too - Fossils imitates, appropriately, the Danse Macabre, as well aas older pieces.
The final movement summarizes it all, bringing together the previous movements into a whole that works it out. On the whole this was great to listen to and a lot of fun - so good to have in here.