Danse macabre

[orchestral music] Now we have the first entrance of the percussion, xylophone with violins.

This is a color that Saint-Saëns inaugurated with his Danse Macabre, so immediately one thinks of skeletons bouncing around.

Then the piccolo and E-flat clarinet dominate the wind instrument themes, those auxiliary instruments again, instruments with a sound that is a little bit more unique.

There's a rollicking energy here, but there's nothing really positive or joyful about it.

And on that evening, Christine Daae had revealed her true self for the first time to the astonished and enthusiastic audience.

Gounod had conducted the funeral march of Marionette, Rieu his beautiful overture to Sigour, Saint-Saëns the Danse Macabre and Reverie Orientale, Massenet an unpublished Hungarian march, Guiraud his Carnaval, Delibes the Valse Lente from Sylvia and the Pizzicati from Coppelia.

Mademoiselle Kraus had sung the Bolero in Vespri Siciliani and Mademoiselle Denise Bloch the Drinking Song in Lucrezia Borgia.

So these are all famous composers and singers singing important works from opera.

What song is

it? It is Danse Macabre.

It's a classic.

There's a wonderful animation of skeletons doing the Danse Macabre.

But yeah, Danse Macabre by Camille Saint-Saëns.

And the version we use is arranged by Franz List and performed by Rebecca Verdun.

It will also,

This is number seven.

It's Saint-Saëns' Danse Macabre.

¶¶ Thank you.

I love that piece of music.

I associate it with going to de Efteling, a big Dutch theme park in the south of the Netherlands.

And I just had so many happy memories going there with our kids.

And Dance Macabre was part of one of their displays.

Okay, well, let's turn to Dolly Parton.

It is in fact program music of the most pronounced and uncompromising type, and the special thought or episode is always indicated by its descriptive title.

The four symphonic poems of Saint-Saëns are Le Roi d'Omphale, Phaeton, Danse Macabre, Les Jeunesses d'Hercule.

I have selected for consideration here the first and third, entitled respectively Roi d'Omphale and the Danse Macabre, the one descriptive of a classic, the other of a medieval scene and tradition.

The first, the Wheel of Omphale, was suggested by the Greek myth of Hercules and Omphale.

The story of the pair is familiar to all readers of classic mythology and represents perhaps the most singular episode in the checkered career of this hero and demigod.

It may be rendered on the piano either in the four-hand arrangement by Guiraud or as transcribed for two hands by the composer himself.

It is about equally feasible and effective in either of these forms.

Saint-Saëns, Danse Macabre For the significance of the French word macabre, we must turn to the Arabic makkabir, signifying a burial place or cemetery.