The Elephant

Camille Saint-Saëns

For trombone and piano

In E♭ major, range E2 to E4

An elephant tries to dance a waltz, from Saint-Saëns’s Carnival of the Animals (1886). The joke is in the middle, where it borrows Berlioz’s light, airy fairy dance, the Dance of the Sylphs, and makes it heavy.

Arranged by Andrew Lee, used under CC BY 4.0. Original parts on IMSLP. Andrew Lee arranged it for a low wind instrument and piano. We gave his solo part to the trombone in Lee’s key, E♭ major, an octave higher; where it offers a note in two octaves and the lower one lies under the trombone’s range, we kept the upper one. Engraved anew.

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