Saint-Saëns: Danse macabre

Everybody knows the Devil has all the best tunes and that he plays the violin. The 19th century delighted in all kinds of Gothic horrors – particularly in France. Composer Saint-Saëns first wrote a song ‘Danse macabre’ in 1872, setting a complete poem by Henri Cazalis which described the Devil tapping his violin bow on tombstones and skeletons rising from their tones. Saint-Saëns composed this orchestral symphonic poem two years later, complete with satanic scraping of the violin and evoking the sound of skeletons with the the xylophone.

Saint-Saëns was on good terms with Proms founder and conductor Henry Wood, who recalled one ‘very hilarious lunch’ at his home in Primrose Hill with the composer. At one point the Proms founder’s wife Olga Wood apologised because the drawing-room curtains had not yet come back from the cleaners and immediately Saint-Saëns dashed to the piano, improvising a tune to express the horror of his feelings at being asked into a drawing-room without curtains!