Saint-Saëns, Danse Macabre

The multi-faceted and gifted intellectual and musician Camille Saint-Saëns composed his first piano piece when he was just over four years old. But that did not make that he lay to rest on his laurels. At seven he was already delighting a wide audience in family concerts. Such a promising beginning prompted him to momentarily abandon his studies of Latin, Greek, literature and other sciences to devote himself exclusively to music —a very wise decision that led him to give his first public concert at the Salle Pleyel, in Paris, at the age of ten.

An amazing recital
On the occasion, accompanied on a second piano by an Italian maestro, both a Mozart concerto and a Beethoven concerto were performed, as well as pieces by Hummel, Handel and Bach. At the end, he offered the audience to give an encore with any of the thirty-two Beethoven sonatas that, by the way, he knew by heart. The audience almost threw the room down with applause and the news of this incredible concert spread through the newspapers throughout Europe, even reaching an echo in the press in the United States. Three years later, he entered the Paris Conservatory to study organ and composition. There was no other choice.

Camille Saint-Saëns
(1835 - 1921)

Maturity and Danse Macabre 
Before the age of twenty, with two symphonies to his credit, Camille will have earned the admiration and support of Liszt, Berlioz,
Gounod and Rossini, among others.
By 1875, at the age of forty, his intense creative rhythm had paid off enormously, covering all fields of music and all possible instrumental and vocal combinations.
This is the year that marks the great triumph of his third tone poem, Dansa Macabre, which will earn him even more notoriety, making him the most internationally recognized French composer of his time.

The work
In a waltz rhythm and scarcely seven minutes long, the work is
based on a poem by Henri Cazalis, which describes Death playing the violin before the graves, and at whose call the skeletons come to dance for him. Twelve bells announce the beginning of the work. Death then bursts in with a violin somewhat distorted in pitch to create a ghostly atmosphere. At minute 2:47, the xylophones enter to mimic the beating of the bones when dancing and at the end (7:02), the oboe announces the new day with the crowing of the rooster, calling the dancing skeletons back to their graves.

The excellent animation belongs to a Mr Henderson who in the credits, unfortunately, assigns the work to Liszt, perhaps mistaken for a piece by the Hungarian author with a similar name: Totentanz. Camille's piece ends at minute 7:45, with two chords of little enhancement, dominant and tonic (like tangos). What you hear next is the song Destroying Angel, by the English band Sneaker Pimps.

And as there is room for everyone in the vineyard of the Lord, the video has received various and opposing comments on Youtube, from the most enthusiastic greeting to the label of gross stupidity, including the claim that the dancing skeletons seem to be gay. As for me, I loved it.