Conductor : Leopold Stokowski / National Philharmonic Orchestra / Artwork:Remedios Varo,"Les Feuilles Mortes".
Home
Related:
Danse macabre (Saint-Saëns)
Danse macabre, Op. 40, is a tone poem for orchestra, written in 1874 by French composer Camille Saint-Saëns. It started out in 1872 as an art song for voice and piano with a French text by the poet Henri Cazalis, which is based in an old French superstition. In 1874, the composer expanded and reworked the piece into a tone poem, replacing the vocal line with a solo violin.
Analysis
According to legend, "Death" appears at midnight every year on Halloween. Death calls forth the dead from their graves to dance their dance of death for him while he plays his fiddle represented by a solo violin with its E-string tuned to an E-flat in an example of scordatura tuning. His skeletons dance for him until the rooster crows at dawn, when they must return to their graves until the next year…
The piece makes particular use of the xylophone to imitate the sounds of rattling bones. Saint-Saëns uses a similar motif in the Fossils movement of "The Carnival of the Animals".
Text
An English translation of the poem follows:
Zig, zig, zig, Death in cadence, Striking a tomb with his heel, Death at midnight plays a dance-tune, Zig, zig, zag, on his violin. The winter wind blows, and the night is dark; Moans are heard in the linden trees. White skeletons pass through the gloom, Running and leaping in their shrouds. Zig, zig, zig, each one is frisking, You can hear the cracking of the bones of the dancers. A lustful couple sits on the moss. So as to taste long lost delights. Zig zig, zig, Death continues .The unending scraping on his instrument. A veil has fallen! The dancer is naked. Her partner grasps her amorously. The lady, it's said, is a marchioness or baroness. And her green gallant, a poor cartwright. Horror! Look how she gives herself to him, Like the rustic was a baron. Zig, zig, zig. What a saraband! They all hold hands and dance in circles. Zig, zig, zag. You can see in the crowd. The king dancing among the peasants. But hist! All of a sudden, they leave the dance, They push forward, they fly; the cock has crowed. Oh what a beautiful night for the poor world! Long live death and equality!
Reception
When Danse macabre first premiered, it was not received well. Audiences were quite unsettled by the disturbing, yet innovative,[dubious – discuss] sounds that Saint-Saëns elicited. Shortly after the premiere, it was transcribed into a piano arrangement by Franz Liszt (S.555), a good friend of Saint-Saëns. It was again later transcribed into a popular piano arrangement by virtuoso pianist Vladimir Horowitz. The pipe organ transcription by Lemare is also popular.
Eventually, the piece was used in dance recitals, particularly those of Anna Pavlova.
