Danse Macabre Camille Saint-Saens

Danse Macabre ‘Danse Macabre’ is a piece of programme music written in the late 1800s by the French composer Camille Saint-Saens. This work is based upon a poem by the Frenchman Henri Cazalis. The music tells the story of gruesome happenings in the churchyard of a small French village on the night of Halloween.

Listen to the poem Zig-a-zig-a-zig, It’s the rhythm of death…

Saint-Saens Twelve strokes of midnight Tapping the tombstones Death tuning his violin The skeletons Dancing Zig-a-zig-a-zig, on the violin

The twelve strokes of midnight are the first sounds we hear played on the harp and the violin.

The mysterious cloaked figure of Death appears. He drums his heels on the tombstones. This is represented by two types of stringed instruments. The cellos and double-basses.

Methods of Playing Arco – Using the bow Pizzicato – Plucking the strings

Death tunes his violin, urging the skeletons to rise from their graves. The skeletons come out and begin to dance.

There are 3 beats in a bar. It is first heard on the flute and then on the violins.

Death plays the main waltz tune on his violin.

The waltz gets faster as the skeletons’ dancing gets more and more frantic.

The wind rustling through the graveyard trees is suggested by two families of instruments The woodwind and string families.

The music becomes wilder and more frantic with the skeletons dancing into a frenzy until…

Silence

The oboe signifies the cock-crow and the first Light of dawn. The skeletons scatter and vanish.

There is a short reminder of Death’s melancholy violin tune before he too disappears…

Until next Hallowe’en…

Flat b Flat = lower to the left

Sharp # Sharp = raise to the right

BUT… Sometimes a note can have 2 names, we call this an enharmonic note. So…Eb and D# make the same sound

Line 2 of Danse Macabre D E G F# E D E E F#