Danse Macabre (Saint-Saëns) Song

Danse Macabre-Camille Saint-Saëns DAMIAN WHITELEY-Bass TAMARA ANNA CISLOWSKA-Stuart Sons Pianoforte Many will recognise this famous melody from the orchestral tone poem with violin solo by Camille Saint-Säens (1835 - 1921). However, fewer know that it began life as a song setting of the poem by Henri Cazalis describing the appearance of the Grim Reaper playing his violin on Halloween, calling the dead from their graves to dance to the eerie sound of the ’Devil’s chord’ (the Tritone). The scrape of his bow on the strings can be heard within the repeated ’zig et zig et zig’ motif. In the world of opera the Devil, or Mephistopheles, is traditionally assigned to the bass voice, and at the end of this song ’la mort’ thunderously intones, “LONG LIVE DEATH AND EQUALITY!“