I don’t care how stealthily one creeps through the graveyard at midnight. You won’t get through the Halloween season without encountering Camille Saint-Saëns’ “Danse Macabre.”
Saint-Saëns, born on this date in 1835, originally set Henri Cazalis’ poem – about the personification of Death summoning the departed from their graves to cut a rug until cockcrow – as a chanson, or art song, for voice and piano in 1872. Two years later, he expanded it, putting some flesh on its bones and crafting it into the beloved symphonic poem, which has been a staple of Halloween programs ever since.
Someone married the classic 1937 cartoon short “Skeleton Frolic” – pretty well, I think – to the orchestral version.
It’s also used effectively in this modern trailer for the 1922 silent classic “Häxan.”
And featured prominently in this scene from Jean Renoir’s 1939 film “Rules of the Game.”
Here it is, in its original version. José Van Dam sings it, with Jean-Philippe Collard at the piano.
Here’s a translation of the text, by Henri Cazalis:
Zig, zig, zig, Death in cadence
Striking a tomb with his heel
Death at midnight plays a dance-tune
Zig, zig, zag, on his violin
The winter wind blows, and the night is dark;
Moans are heard in the linden trees
White skeletons pass through the gloom
Running and leaping in their shrouds
Zig, zig, zig, each one is frisking
You can hear the cracking of the bones of the dancers
A lustful couple sits on the moss
So as to taste long lost delights
Zig zig, zig, Death continues
The unending scraping on his instrument
A veil has fallen! The dancer is naked
Her partner grasps her amorously
The lady, it’s said, is a marchioness or baroness
And her green gallant, a poor cartwright
Horror! Look how she gives herself to him
Like the rustic was a baron
Zig, zig, zig. What a saraband!
They all hold hands and dance in circles
Zig, zig, zag. You can see in the crowd
The king dancing among the peasants
But hist! All of a sudden, they leave the dance
They push forward, they fly; the cock has crowed
Oh what a beautiful night for the poor world!
Long live death and equality!
These “grave” thoughts a little lurid for your taste? Try this autumnal Clarinet Sonata, one of three woodwind sonatas written by the composer during the last year of his life, 1921, when he was 85 years old.
Happy birthday – and happy Halloween – Saint-Saëns!
