Rattling Bones at Midnight with Saint-Saëns's Danse macabre
The Backstory
Danse macabre, Op. 40
I'm Camille Saint-Saëns, and this is the backstory of my Danse macabre. You'll learn how a little song grew into an orchestral piece where a solo violin took over the voice, which explains why the music still seems to speak. Whenever you feel ready, give the Trainer a go , because my fellow composers and I also teach you here to recognize our pieces when you hear them.
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A Song Before It Was a Skeleton
I started Danse macabre in 1872, and at that point it was a song for voice and piano. The words came from the poet Henri Cazalis, so I can't take credit for the spooky story itself. It tells how Death calls the dead out of their graves at midnight on Halloween to dance until dawn. I supplied the music, which seemed a fair way to split the work.An Old Name With a Fuzzy Past
The title is a French term, and it points back to the medieval Dance of Death. Nobody knows for sure where the words "danse macabre" come from. One idea is that they come from a Latin phrase meaning the dance of the Maccabees, and another says they travelled through Spain from an Arabic word for cemeteries. It's a little fitting that a dance about the dead has a name nobody can quite trace back to its grave.The Singer Hands Over the Microphone
In 1874 I reworked the song for orchestra, and the singing voice had to go. A solo violin took over the vocal line, so the tune that once carried Cazalis's words now sings without any words at all. My manuscript is dated October 1874, which means the piece was ready well before anyone heard it. People sometimes assume it's an opera or a ballet, but it's a single stretch of orchestral music that tells its story on its own.Borrowing a Good Idea From Liszt
The form I chose is called a symphonic poem, which is one continuous piece of orchestral music that paints a story or a picture. Liszt had made the form famous, and in the 1870s I embraced it, starting with Le Rouet d'Omphale in 1871. Danse macabre is the best known of my pieces in that form. At the time I was also vice-president of the Société Nationale de Musique, founded in 1871, so I was surrounded by people who cared about new music.A Dark Key and a Large Crowd
I wrote the piece in G minor, a key that suits a midnight gathering of the dead quite well. The orchestra is a big one, with a piccolo whistling at the top, a tuba grumbling at the bottom and a harp in between. All of that sits behind the solo violin, which plays the part of Death's leading dancer. The mix lets the music go from a whisper to a full, swirling party without ever losing its eerie edge.A Chilly Welcome at the Châtelet
The first performance took place on 24 January 1875 at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, with Édouard Colonne conducting. I dedicated the piece to Caroline Montigny-Rémaury. The audience and the critics were not kind, and one complaint called the violin's sound "horrible screeching", while another objected to what they called a "deformed Dies irae". Accounts differ, and some say the reviews were merely mixed, but nobody describes it as an instant success.A Rather Crowded Year
Around the time of the premiere, the publisher Durand, Schoenewerk et Cie. brought the music out in Paris. In that same year, 1875, I married Marie-Laure Truffot, and the marriage turned out to be an unhappy one. I was also still the organist at La Madeleine, a post I held until 1877. So while the dead were dancing on the concert stage, my own life was busier and less cheerful than anyone could have guessed.The Violinists Come Around
Whatever the first audience thought, the piece slowly won people over and became a concert favorite. I once remarked that violinists no longer want their chanterelles tuned any other way than in E flat, and a chanterelle is simply the violin's highest string. In 1877 I made a version for violin and piano myself, and I also arranged it for two pianos. It's a pleasant thing for a composer to see a piece that was criticized for screeching violins become a test of how well a violinist can play.Pianists Join the Party
Franz Liszt made a transcription of the piece for piano solo, which I took as a real compliment. Ernest Guiraud made a version for piano four hands, so two people could share one keyboard and one skeleton. In 1942 Vladimir Horowitz changed Liszt's transcription extensively. His version is the one pianists play most often today.The Dead Keep Turning Up
I liked my bone-rattling idea enough to use it again in the "Fossils" movement of The Carnival of the Animals. Dancers took to the piece too, among them Natalia Trouhanowa in 1911 and Anna Pavlova, and in 1922 Dudley Murphy made a short film called Danse Macabre. Much later the tune became the title music of the British television show Jonathan Creek. Not bad for a piece whose first audience wanted to leave the dead in their graves.---
Well, that is the story of how my Danse macabre came to be, from a small song in 1872 to an orchestral piece with a solo violin. Did you enjoy learning about the backstory of Danse macabre? I hope it made you want to listen again, because the piece looks a little different once you know where it came from. The first audience in 1875 did not quite know what to make of it, and I find it rather touching that something so strange has since become such a favorite. There is still a good deal more to discover about Danse macabre. You can follow the links on this page to explore it further, whether you want to hear the music again or find out what else is hiding in it. Come back whenever you like, and listen for the harp at midnight.