Stories of Symphonic Music / A Guide to the Meaning of Important Symphonies, Overtures, and Tone-poems from Beethoven to the Present Day

Chapter 109: "DANCE OF DEATH" ["DANSE MACABRE"], SYMPHONIC POEM No. 3: Op. 40

Open in WeRead

Explore more books like this:

About This Book

The guide offers concise, non-technical explanations of symphonies, overtures, and tone-poems, arranged by composer, that orient concert-goers to the illustrative or poetic intentions behind each work. A preface argues for knowing a composition's programme when it is central to the music; individual entries summarize a work's descriptive basis, thematic outline, and salient orchestral effects without indulging in speculative interpretations. Coverage ranges from Beethoven through late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century composers and selects items likely to appear on contemporary orchestral programs, providing practical background to enhance informed listening.

"DANCE OF DEATH" ["DANSE MACABRE"], SYMPHONIC POEM No. 3: Op. 40

This symphonic poem illustrates a fantastic poem by Henri Cazalis, lines from which are prefixed to the score. They are as follows (in a prose translation made by Mr. W. F. Apthorp):

"Zig and Zig and Zig, Death plays in cadence,
Beating time with his heel upon a tombstone;
Death plays a dance-tune, Zig and Zig and Zig, on his fiddle.
The winter wind blows, and the night is dark;
Groans come from under the lindens;
White skeletons flit across the gloom,
Running and skipping in their capacious shrouds.
Zig and Zig and Zig, capers every one;
You hear the dancers' bones rattle.

"But whist! Of a sudden they quit their dance;
They rush off helter-skelter, the cock has crowed."

A violin solo impersonates Death the fiddler, while the rattling of the bones of the grewsome dancers is delineated by the xylophone (wood-harmonica). The uncanny dance increases in wildness and abandon until it is cut short by the cock-crow (oboe).