Rattling Bones at Midnight with Saint-Saëns's Danse macabre
The Listen Guide
Danse macabre, Op. 40
I'm Camille Saint-Saëns, and this is the listen guide to my Danse macabre. You'll learn what to listen for in a piece whose scratchy solo violin and rattling xylophone unsettled its first Paris audience in 1875, and why people love those sounds today. Pieces like this are easier to recognize than you might think, as my fellow composers and I show on this site, so come and practice in the Trainer .
---
How to Listen Without a Music Degree
Think of Danse macabre as a ghost story told without a single word, with the instruments playing the characters. Listen first for the harp, which marks midnight, and then for the solo violin, which is the voice of Death himself and always stands a little apart from the rest. The xylophone is the sound of bones, so whenever you hear a dry clatter, you know the skeletons have joined in, and the oboe saves its big moment for the very end. You don't need to know a note of theory, because the whole piece follows one night from the first stroke of the clock to the first light of dawn.Why I Called It a Dance of Death
I named it Danse macabre because that is the French term for the medieval Dance of Death, an old idea that suited a piece about the dead dancing. The story has the dead rise at midnight on Halloween, so a title that promises a dance seemed an honest one. I also liked that the phrase sounds elegant and a little frightening at the same time, which is exactly the mix I wanted in the music. And since a dance needs rhythm and shape, the title gave me a good reason to write a real, swirling dance instead of just a spooky noise.Neither Sonata Nor Rondo, Just a Night Out
Choosing the form was an adventure, because I could have used a sonata or a rondo, but neither fits a story about one night with a clear beginning and end. So I wrote a symphonic poem in a single movement, a form I embraced from Liszt in the 1870s, beginning with Le Rouet d'Omphale. The music is rooted in G minor and moves through five sections: the strokes of midnight, the violin's call, the rattling dance, the hymn at the midpoint, and the dawn. I'm only touching on them here, because I'll take you through each one in turn, so please keep your seat.Section 1: Twelve Knocks at the Door
The piece begins in near silence, with the harp playing a single D twelve times for the strokes of midnight. Nothing is in a hurry yet, and the quiet strings underneath hold the hush like a held breath. Count the strokes if you like, because when the twelfth one falls, the night officially belongs to the dead. That stillness is the calm before the dance, and it makes everything that follows sound bigger.Section 2: The Soloist Wants a Word
Then the solo violin enters on a tritone, an interval that sounds restless and unresolved, as if it can't decide where to stand. Its top string is tuned down to E♭, which gives the violin a thinner, harder edge than you would normally hear from it. This is the invitation to the dance, and the violin plays it with a certain swagger, calling the sleepers up one by one. The mood is still in G minor and still eerie, but now it is clear that something is awake.Section 3: Bones Out for a Spin
Now the dance proper begins, and the orchestra gathers speed, passing the tune around between the violin, the winds and the strings. The xylophone joins in, imitating rattling bones, and I liked the sound so much that I used the same idea again in the 'Fossils' movement of The Carnival of the Animals. The music keeps tightening as it goes, and the mood turns from creepy to almost merry, which is the unsettling part. Notice that the dancers never seem to tire, but then the dead have nothing left to be tired with.Section 4: A Hymn Crashes the Party
At the midpoint the woodwinds quote the Dies irae, an old plainsong, and the dance makes room for it. The music turns to a major key here, so the mood flips from sinister to strangely sunny. Some critics at the premiere complained about a 'deformed Dies irae', but I think that is the point, since at this party even a solemn tune gets twisted. Then the dance picks up where it left off, wilder than before, as if the interruption had only made the dancers hungrier.Section 5: The Cockerel Ends the Fun
Near the end the dancing reaches its wildest point, and then an oboe imitates the cockerel's crow at dawn. That thin, bright call stops the dancers short, and the dead return to their graves. The music thins out and sinks down quietly, and after all that noise the calm feels like a long exhale. Even ghosts, it seems, keep to a farmer's schedule.Your Turn to Join the Dance
Now it's your turn, so press play and let the music carry you through the night. Keep in mind what we've talked about: the harp at midnight, the violin calling, the bones, the hymn and the cockerel. The first audience in 1875 was not kind to it, and some people complained about the screeching violin, yet it later became a concert favorite. I hope the journey is as thrilling for you as it was for me to write it.---
I hope you enjoyed learning about my Danse macabre and finding your way through the music of that one long night. Now that the last stroke of the harp has faded and the dead have gone back to their graves, I like to think the piece sounds a little different to you than it did at the start. The first time through, you may simply follow the story, but once you know where to listen, small details begin to appear on their own. There is still a good deal more to discover about Danse macabre. You could look into how the music changed shape over the years, how other musicians took it up in their own ways, or how the same idea of dancing bones found its way into other works of mine. Some pieces give up everything on the first hearing, but this one rewards you each time you come back to it. So please click on the links provided and keep exploring Danse macabre at your own pace. I would be glad to have you along for another listen.