Saint-Saëns's Danse Macabre

August 1, 2013

Gr 2-5-This title in the author's music-appreciation series addresses the origin of Camille Saint-Saens's symphonic work with a description of the composer's nighttime visit to the Paris Catacombs with his friend Henri Cazalis. The musical inspiration resulted first in the form of a solo song, and later Saint-Saens's two-year quest for the perfect instrumental sound to express dancing skeletons rising from their graves. Originally criticized, but later acclaimed, this work is explained in first-performance detail: the first violin tuned to a dissonant interval according to specific instruction in the score, other violins played on the wood of bows, and the addition of a previously little-used instrument, the xylophone. Pen and watercolor illustrations paint 19th-century Paris streets and interiors with single-dimensional faces framing an explosion of skeletal dancing forms during the description of Danse Macabre's first performance in 1875. An author's note and accompanying CD featuring the performance of Lorin Maazel and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra complete this offering with soaring strings and dissonance, a rattling xylophone, swaying woodwinds, trombones heralding the melody, and the final call of a rooster in the solo oboe-all easily apparent to readers through the author's descriptive text: "Long live the music! Long live the dance.-Mary Elam, Learning Media Services, Plano ISD, TX

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