Whether we like it or not, the double bass will be for ever linked with the large, lumbering and lugubrious elephant – much as the cello is with the elegant swan, or the tuba with Tubby!
It wasnโt always the case however, and certainly in the 18th-century the double bass was an important and respected solo instrument with a vast repertoire of concertos and solo works by Dittersdorf, Vanhal, Hoffmeister, Pichl, Kohaut, Mozart, Koลพeluch, Sperger, Zimmerman and Haydn. In the 19th-century Giovanni Bottesini (1821-1889) was able to dispel the myth that the double bass was only an orchestral or bass-line instrument, and one report noted that his bass sounded like a โcage full of nightingalesโ.
From 1886, the year of its composition, and 1922, the year of publication, the image of the double bass was changed for ever. The Carnival of the Animals by Camille Saint-Saรซns (1835-1921), a perennial favourite at childrenโs concerts, represented the double bass in a humorous โpomposoโ way and we are now blessed with our own โnational anthemโ. The Carnival of the Animals is one of Saint-Saรซnsโ most popular works and it is perhaps ironic that, in a career lasting almost seventy years and having composed operas, concertos, symphonies, choral works and chamber music, he should be best remembered for a work that was only written as a musical relaxation.
Saint-Saรซns’ misgivings about the popularity of The Carnival of the Animals overshadowing his many other great achievements was entirely accurate, and it was not released for publication until after his death in 1921. The complete work was published the following year, just over thirty-five years after its composition, and The Elephant was released into the musical community. It is a rare work of musical humour which never fails to thrill its audience, young or old.
The Elephant exists in a variety of editions, was used as background music for a series of television adverts for a well-known UK superstore, and inspired the ever-popular The Elephantโs Gavotte by New York bassist, David Walter. One other enduring image is of an almost endless line of bassists standing along the promenade in Port Erin, performing The Elephant during the 1978 Isle of Man Double Bass Competition & Festival. Director, John Bethell, astride a large inflatable elephant, conducted the assemble bassists as Clifford Lee manfully provided the accompaniment on a piano which had been dragged across the beach. This was an excellent publicity opportunity, recorded by the BBC, and what else could they play?
The Elephant is the fifth movement of The Carnival of the Animals and, although only 52 bars long and lasting a little over a minute, it has really captured the imagination of the concert-going public. In E flat major and in 3/8 time, it remains in the lower orchestral register for much of the time and is a musical joke par excellence. Saint-Saรซns created a work of great invention and imagination, whether we like it or not, and he has imbued the work with great skill and humour which is typical of the suite as a whole.
The Elephant begins in a grand and heroic style, with a strong four-bar chordal introduction, although bars two and four lack a downbeat, which is one thing a waltz-inspired piece needs above all things, and the double bass is โwrong-footedโ immediately with an upbeat theme which begins on the first beat of the bar. Extracts from Berliozโs Danse des Sylphes (The Damnation of Faust) and Mendelssohnโs Scherzo from A Midsummer Nightโs Dream, adapted in an elephantine style and several octaves lower than the original, are used to offer the double bass and opportunity to dance elegantly.
The original music returns, but now with a light harp-like accompaniment, and little by little the two instruments come together until they play in unison followed by a two-bar scalic-run from the lowest register of the double bass, offering one brief pirouette for the heroic pachyderm, before a two-bar coda confidently states โThatโs All!โ with its final two chords.
The music is witty and cleverly written to describe the elephant and is a minor musical masterpiece. It is probably the first piece to introduce the double bass to a general audience and, although the double is so much more than this one piece, we all embrace it to the present day and I can guarantee that every bassist will have played it at least once in their musical career.
David Heyes
D’Addario Performing Artist
16 October 2024
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