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by homancore on December 5th, 2008

homancore

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What is the halloween story behind Camille Saint-Saens' Danse Macabre?

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Answers. 3 helpful answers below.

  • by Marguerite on March 4th, 2009

    Marguerite

    I do not think that Saint-Saens wrote the Danse Macabre as a Halloween story. People associate it with Halloween because it has ghosts and skeletons and eerie music.

    "Danse Macabre" is the "Dance of Death". It is a descriptive piece that tells the story with music(Examples)
    1. Death tunes his violin. You hear a violin solo at the beginning. Death is summoning the dead from the grave to perform the dance of the dead.

    2. One by one each group comes out. Witches and ghosts come flying. There are instruments that have a theme song and special instruments for this part.

    3. Another is the danse of the skeletons. I like this one. It has the xylophone melodies that sound like bones.

    4. Another part has everybody dancing together; the music gets faster and louder and louder.




    Good place to teach dynamics.

    5. Then a rooster crows(the clarinet). It's morning, the sun is rising, time for everybody to go back home.

    6. Then church bells ring, good is impled over the scary, and everybody is happy.

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  • by Sparky on December 24th, 2008

    Sparky

    I'm unaware of a Halloween story behind Camille Saint-Saens' Danse Macabre other than it is about death and is generally, as it name says, a macabre piece of music. Could you be thinking of Franz Liszt' Totentanz which is also based on Dies Irae? Totentanz is, I believe, also called Dance Macabre. It doesn't really matter because the same comment also applies. Other than referring to death and being a generally spooky, macabre, piece I'm unaware of a Halloween story about it either.

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  • by Carpediem COAT ab imo pectore on March 7th, 2009

    Carpediem COAT ab imo pectore

    Danse macabre, Op. 40 by French composer Camille Saint-Saëns is an art song for voice and piano (first performed in 1872) with a French text by the poet Henri Cazalis which is based in an old French superstition.

    Two years later, the composer expanded and reworked the piece into a tone poem for orchestra, replacing the vocal line with a solo violin. Click to view with the corresponding explanation.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdLoTPUNtD0

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