Yo Rattlin Bones Boogie with Saint-Saëns's Danse macabre
The Backstory
Danse macabre, Op. 40
Yo yo yo, it's me, Saint-Saëns, and I'm hyped to spill the whole backstory of my Danse macabre for ya, fam! Ya gonna learn how this spooky skeleton romp got a rough welcome at its 1875 Paris premiere, yet still turned into a concert favorite, which is straight-up bonkers, bruh! Oh, and on this site, me and my fellow composers teach ya to recognize our pieces the second they start playin', so go give the Trainer a spin , deadass!
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Started As A Lil' Ditty, Bestie
Okay, strap in, homie, 'cause this whole monster kicked off in 1872 as a teeny art song for voice and piano, no cap! A poet named Henri Cazalis wrote the French words, so don't ya dare pin the poem on me, bruh, I only slapped the tune on it! Picture some singer in a fancy hall just croonin' about dancin' skeletons while a piano plinks behind 'em, how bonkers is that?! Nobody was callin' it a banger yet, dude, it was a baby spooky jam in diapers, sheesh!What The Heck Does Danse Macabre Even Mean
Yo, danse macabre is the French term for the medieval Dance of Death, meanin' everybody from kings to peasants has to boogie with the Grim Reaper in the end, dang! Where the word itself came from? Man, folks still argue about it, for real! The story goes it might come from the Latin Chorea Machabæorum, the dance of the Maccabees, or it hopped over via Spain from the Arabic maqabir, meanin' cemeteries, so who even knows, fam?! Either way, I snagged that title quicker than a pigeon snags a fry, 'cause it screams ghost party, lowkey genius, right?!I Fired The Singer, Don't @ Me
Then in 1874 a wild itch hit me, bruh, and I blew that tiny song up into a full-blown orchestra piece! The singer got the boot, peace out, and a solo violin grabbed the mic instead, which is basically a fiddle doin' karaoke, haha! I dated the manuscript October 1874, inked up and ready, feelin' like a mad scientist cacklin' in a lab, mwahaha! It's one single movement too, no breaks, no pauses to cough or check your phone, just one nonstop spooky rollercoaster, y'all!Liszt Made Me Do It, Kinda
Quick lesson, my guy: a symphonic poem is a chunk of orchestra music that tells a story, like a movie with zero pictures, ya feel me?! The legend Franz Liszt came up with that form, and in the 1870s I dove in headfirst, startin' with Le Rouet d'Omphale in 1871, boom! Out of all my story-tunes, Danse macabre is the one everybody and their grandma knows, which is straight-up nuts, fr fr! It's not an opera and it's not a ballet, so don't come at me lookin' for singers in tights, 'cause it's just an orchestra and one fiddle goin' feral!Organ Dude By Day, Ghost DJ By Night
Lemme tell ya, I had a day job, chief, 'cause I was still the organist at La Madeleine, playin' holy tunes while dreamin' up dancin' corpses, hilarious, right?! I'd quit that gig in 1877, but while I was cookin' up this piece I was still clockin' in, no joke! On the side I was vice-president of the Société Nationale de Musique, founded back in 1871, so yeah, I was a busy bee, dude! Church organ one minute and graveyard rave the next, my schedule was totally unhinged, yikes!Opening Night At The Châtelet
The big night landed on 24 January 1875 at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, and my heart was thumpin' like a bass drum, yo! Édouard Colonne held the baton, so he's the dude wavin' his arms while the skeletons got summoned, big props, legend! I dedicated the whole thing to Caroline Montigny-Rémaury, so she scored the shiny gift, lucky lady, for real! Everybody settled into their velvet seats expectin' a chill evenin', and I'm over here like, hold onto your wigs, 'cause the ghouls are comin', haha!The Crowd Did Not Clap, Bruh
Okay, ouch, the premiere bombed hard, dude, 'cause folks were not feelin' it one bit! Roger Nichols points to critics whinin' about my 'deformed Dies irae,' which stung like a paper cut on the soul, yikes! They also trashed the 'horrible screeching' of the solo violin and side-eyed the xylophone too, rude much?! Some accounts say the reviews were only mixed, so the whole thing's kinda foggy, but I'm tellin' ya it did not go viral that night, lol!Weddin' Bells And Sheet Music
Around 1875 the publisher Durand, Schoenewerk et Cie. printed the music in Paris, so my graveyard party hit the shelves, baby! That same year I married Marie-Laure Truffot, and whoa, that marriage was unhappy, big oof, no sugarcoatin'! So picture me: a flopped premiere, a sad marriage, and a skeleton song stuck in my head, what a combo, man! Life kept throwin' curveballs at me, but hey, at least the bones stayed on beat, ha!From Flop To Fan Favorite
Plot twist, bro: the piece did not stay a dud, 'cause it later turned into a concert favorite, and I'm still shook! Violinists got so hooked on that weird tuning that I joked they no longer want their chanterelles tuned otherwise than in E flat, they're obsessed, lmao! I whipped up a violin and piano version in 1877, plus a two-piano one, 'cause I just couldn't quit, ya know?! Franz Liszt made a piano solo transcription and Ernest Guiraud did a four-hands one, so legends were fightin' over my ghost jam, dang!Still Haunting Everything Today
Fast-forward to 1942, when Vladimir Horowitz made extensive changes to Liszt's transcription, and that's the version most pianists bang out now, crazy, right?! I even recycled the bone-rattlin' xylophone trick in the 'Fossils' movement of The Carnival of the Animals, 'cause a good gag deserves a rerun, am I right?! Dancers jumped in too, with Natalia Trouhanowa in 1911 and Anna Pavlova twirlin' to it, and Dudley Murphy dropped a 1922 short film called Danse Macabre, how dope is that?! The British show Jonathan Creek even uses it as its title tune, so my skeletons are basically TV stars now, y'all, no cap!---
Yo yo yo, hold up, fam, don't dip out yet, 'cause we've gotta wrap this midnight madness up right, ya feel me? Did ya enjoy learnin' about the backstory of Danse macabre, or what?! Think about it, bruh: a little song from 1872 grew into a full-blown orchestra monster, and a solo violin took over the mic in 1874, which is straight-up bonkers! The crowd at the 1875 premiere wasn't exactly throwin' confetti, either, and look at it now, a total concert favorite, so take that, haters, boom! Honestly, that gets me all misty-eyed, 'cause even the weirdest, screechiest, bone-clackin'est ideas can end up as the life of the party, no cap! And yo, I'm just gettin' warmed up, y'all, 'cause there's a whole graveyard of other stuff to dig into with Danse macabre! There's more to explore than a skeleton has ribs, I swear, and that's a lotta ribs, dude! So c'mon, smash those links down below and keep the spooky party rollin', 'cause they're gonna hook ya up with even more Danse macabre goodness, fo' real! Go on, click 'em, click 'em, what are ya waitin' for, a rooster to crow?! Catch ya on the dance floor, my friend, and keep your ears wide open, peace out, deadass!