Originally composed as a chanson for voice and piano and than transcribed for orchestra, the Danse Macabre Op. 40 is a short symphonic poem composed by Camille Saint-Saëns in 1874. Among the various possible sources of inspiration, Camille Saint-Saëns chose a poem by Henri Cazalis, who wrote a grotesque parody of Goethe’s famous ballad on the same theme. In his version, Cazalis portrayed death playing an out of tune violin in a cemetery. In his composition, Saint-Saëns does not follow stereotypical demonic musical suggestions; instead he draws on Cazalis’s original reading of the topic and attempts to convey its characteristic traits through a spirited and wittyinstrumentation.
