Saint-Saëns – Danse Macabre Op. 40
Danse Macabre Op. 40 (1874)
Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921)
Like Grieg, the young Saint-Saëns received encouragement from Franz Liszt, who invented the genre of the symphonic poem. Danse Macabre is the third symphonic poem by Saint-Saens, who was the first French composer to embrace this genre. Based on a nonsense poem, the work opens with the clock striking 12. The violin tunes up and, the devil begins his ghoulish waltz in which the repeated “tritone” lives up to its name as “the devil’s interval.”. The newly invented xylophone evokes the rattling of skeletons, until the oboe’s cock crow when all disappear. (The xylophone was so new, that Saint-Saëns included in the score directions where to buy one!)
Performed: 1983, 1995, Aug 2013