Uploaded August 2025 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
Ching-a-Ring's origin was as a blackface minstrel song. While arranging the piece for the second set of his Old American Songs, composer Aaron Copland made a point of rewriting the lyrics to efface any of the song's minstrel baggage: "I did not want to take any chance of it being construed as racist."
Ching-a-Ring's origin was as a blackface minstrel song. While arranging the piece for the second set of his Old American Songs, composer Aaron Copland made a point of rewriting the lyrics to efface any of the song's minstrel baggage: "I did not want to take any chance of it being construed as racist."









![Topeka Symp Orch 032825B John Lee The Swan from Carnival of the Animals Camille Saint Säens
Le cygne, pronounced [lə siɲ], or The Swan, is the 13th and penultimate movement of The Carnival of the Animals by Camille Saint-Saëns. Originally scored for solo cello accompanied by two pianos, it has been arranged and transcribed for many instruments but remains best known as a cello solo.
The piece is in 6/4 time, with a key signature of G major and a tempo marking andantino grazioso. The slow cello melody is accompanied by almost constant broken chord figurations on the pianos. When performed as a separate movement, not in the context of The Carnival, The Swan is frequently played with accompaniment on only one piano. Topeka Symp Orch 032825B John Lee The Swan from Carnival of the Animals Camille Saint Säens](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/zL1fOidWQ70/mqdefault.jpg)
